‘There was … in England a shameless woman and wanton harlot called Ales Peres, of base kindred … being neither beautiful nor fair, she knew how to cover these defects with her flattering tongue …’

—A historical relation of certain passages about the end of King Edward the Third and of his death

‘It is not fitting that all the keys should hang from the belt of one woman.’

—The Bishop of Rochester

‘… no one dared to go against her …’

—Thomas Walsingham, a monk of St Albans

About the Author

ANNE O’BRIEN taught history in the East Riding of Yorkshire before deciding to fulfil an ambition to write historical fiction. She now lives in an eighteenth-century timbered cottage with her husband in the Welsh Marches, a wild, beautiful place renowned for its black-and-white timbered houses, ruined castles and priories and magnificent churches. Steeped in history, famous people and bloody deeds, as well as ghosts and folklore, the Marches provide inspiration for her interest in medieval England.

Visit her at www.anneobrienbooks.com

Also by

ANNE

O’BRIEN

VIRGIN WIDOW

DEVIL’S CONSORT

The
King’s
Concubine
Anne
O’Brien

This is a work of fiction. References to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

HQ is an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

Published in Great Britain 2012.

HQ

1 London Bridge Street

London

SE1 9GF

© Anne O’Brien 2012

Fleur Adcock, Poems 1960-2000 (Bloodaxe Books, 2000) reprinted

with kind permission of the publisher on behalf of the author

Map and Family Tree acknowledgement Orphans Press Ltd

ISBN 978-1-408-96981-6

Version: 2019-04-12

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Other titles by the author

Extract

Author Note

Read all about it …

About the Publisher

Descendants of Edward III (simplified)

For George, who managed to live comfortably for

a year with both me and Alice Perrers.

As ever, with love and thanks.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All my thanks:

To my agent Jane Judd who appreciated the possibility of Alice Perrers as an unconventional heroine. Her advice and support, as always, are beyond price.

To Jenny Hutton and the HQ team. Their guidance and commitment were invaluable in enabling Alice Perrers to emerge from infamy.

To Helen Bowden and all at Orphans Press who come to my rescue and continue to create masterpieces out of my genealogy and maps.

To Phia McBarnet who patiently introduced me to the benefits of social media and set my foot on the steep learning curve.

Prologue

‘TODAY you will be my Lady of the Sun,’ King Edward says as he approaches to settle me into my chariot. ‘My Queen of Ceremonies.’

And not before time.

I don’t say the words, of course—I am, after all, a woman of percipience—but I think them. I have waited too many years for this acclaim. Twelve years as Edward’s whore.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ I murmur, curtseying deeply, my smile as sweet as honey.

I sit, a cloak of shimmering gold tissue spread around me, to show a lining of scarlet taffeta. My gown is red, lined with white silk and edged in ermine: Edward’s colours, royal fur fit for a Queen. Over all glitters a myriad of precious stones refracting the light—rubies as red as blood, sapphires dark and mysterious, strange beryls capable of destroying the power of poison. Everyone knows that I wear Queen Philippa’s jewels.

I sit at my ease, alone in my pre-eminence, my hands loose in my bejewelled lap. This is my right.

I look around to see if I might catch sight of the black scowl of the Princess Joan. No sign of her, my sworn enemy. She’ll be tucked away in her chamber at Kennington, wishing me ill. Joan the Fair. Joan the Fat! An adversary to be wary of, with the sensitivity and morals of a feral cat in heat.

My gaze slides to Edward as he mounts his stallion and my smile softens. He is tall and strong and good to look on. What a pair we make, he and I. The years have not yet pressed too heavily on him while I am in my prime. An ugly woman, by all accounts, but not without talent.

I am Alice. Royal Concubine. Edward’s beloved Lady of the Sun.

Ah …!

I blink as a swooping pigeon smashes the scene in my mind, flinging reality back at me with cruel exactitude. Sitting in my orchard, far from Court and my King, I am forced to accept the truth. How low have I fallen. I am caged in impotent loneliness, like Edward’s long-dead lion, powerless, isolated, stripped of everything I had made for myself.

I am nothing. Alice Perrers is no more.

Chapter One

WHERE do I start? It’s difficult to know. My beginnings as I recall them were not moments marked by joy or happiness. So I will start with what I do recall. My very first memory.

I was a child, still far too young to have much understanding of who or what I was, kneeling with the sisters in the great Abbey church of St Mary’s in the town of Barking. It was the eighth day of December and the air so cold it hurt my lungs. The stone paving was rough beneath my knees but even then I knew better than to shuffle. The statue on its plinth in the Lady Chapel was clothed in a new blue gown, her veil and wimple made from costly silk that glowed startlingly white in the dark shadows. The nuns sang the office of Compline and round the feet of the statue a pool of candles had been lit. The light flickered over the deep blue folds so that the figure appeared to move, to breathe.

‘Who is she?’ I asked, voice too loud. I was still very ignorant.

Sister Goda, novice mistress when there were novices to teach, hushed me. ‘The Blessed Virgin.’

‘What is she called?’

‘She is the Blessed Virgin Mary.’

‘Is this a special day?’

‘It is the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Now, hush!’

It meant nothing to me then but I fell in love with her. The Blessed Mary’s face was fair, her eyes downcast, but there was a little smile on her painted lips and her hands were raised as if to beckon me forward. But what took my eye was the crown of stars that had been placed for the occasion on her brow. The gold gleamed in the candlelight, the jewels reflected the flames in their depths. And I was dazzled. After the service, when the nuns had filed out, I stood before her, my feet small in the shimmer of candles.

‘Come away, Alice.’ Sister Goda took my arm, not gently.

I was stubborn and planted my feet.

‘Come on!’

‘Why does she wear a crown of stars?’ I asked.

‘Because she is the Queen of Heaven. Now will you …?’

The sharp slap on my arm made me obey, yet still I reached up, although I was too small to touch it, and smiled.

‘I would like a crown like that.’

My second memory followed fast on my first. Despite the late hour, Sister Goda, small and frail but with a strong right arm, struck my hand with a leather strap until my skin was red and blistered. Punishment for the sin of vanity and covetousness, she hissed. Who was I to look at a crown and desire it for myself? Who was I to approach the Blessed Virgin, the Queen of Heaven? I was of less importance than the pigeons that found their way into the high reaches of the chancel. I would not eat for the whole of the next day. I would rise and go to bed with an empty belly. I would learn humility. And as my belly growled and my hand stung, I learned, and not for the last time, that it was not in the nature of women to get what they desired.

‘You are a bad child,’ Sister Goda stated unequivocally.

I lay awake until the Abbey bell summoned us at two of the clock for Matins. I did not weep. I think I must have accepted her judgement on me, or was too young to understand its implications.

And my third memory?

Ah, vanity! Sister Goda failed to beat it out of me. She eyed me dispassionately over some misdemeanour that I cannot now recall.

‘What a trial you are to me, girl! And most probably a bastard, born out of holy wedlock. An ugly one at that. Though you are undoubtedly a creature of God’s creation, I see no redeeming features in you.’

So I was ugly and a bastard. I wasn’t sure which was the worse of the two, to my twelve-year-old mind. Was I ugly? Plain, Sister Goda might have said if there was any charity in her, but ugly was another world. Forbidden as we were the ownership of a looking glass in the Abbey—such an item was far too venal and precious to be owned by a nun—which of the sisters had never peered into a bowl of still water to catch an image? Or sought a distorted reflection in one of the polished silver ewers used in the Abbey church? I did the same and saw what Sister Goda saw.

That night I looked into my basin of icy water before my candle was doused. The reflection shimmered, but it was enough. My hair, close cut against my skull, to deter lice as much as vanity, was dark and coarse and straight. My eyes were as dark as sloes, like empty holes eaten in wool by the moth. As for the rest—my cheeks were hollow, my nose prominent, my mouth large. It was one thing to be told that I was ugly; quite another to see it for myself. Even accepting the rippling flaws in the reflection, I had no beauty. I was old enough and female enough to understand, and be hurt by it. Horrified by my heavy brows, black as smudges of charcoal, I dropped my candle into the water, obliterating the image.

Lonely in the dark in my cold, narrow cell, the walls pressing in on me in my solitary existence, I wept. The dark, and being alone, frightened me—then as now.

* * *

The rest of my young days merged into a grey lumpen pottage of misery and resentment, stirred and salted by Sister Goda’s admonitions.

‘You were late again for Matins, Alice. Don’t think I didn’t see you slinking into the church like the sly child you are!’ Yes, I was late.

‘Alice, your veil is a disgrace in the sight of God. Have you dragged it across the floor?’ No, I had not, but against every good intention my veil collected burrs and fingerprints and ash from the hearth.

‘Why can you not remember the simplest of texts, Alice? Your mind is as empty as a beggar’s purse.’ No, not empty, but engaged with something of more moment. Perhaps the soft fur of the Abbey cat as it curled against my feet in a patch of sunlight.

‘Alice, why do you persist in this ungodly slouch?’ My growing limbs were ignorant of elegance.

‘A vocation is given to us by God as a blessing,’ Mother Sybil, our Abbess, admonished the sinners in her care from her seat of authority every morning in Chapter House. ‘A vocation is a blessing that allows us to worship God through prayer, and through good works to the poor in our midst. We must honour our vocation and submit to the Rules of St Benedict, our most revered founder.’

Mother Abbess was quick with a scourge against those who did not submit. I remember its sting well. And that of her tongue. I felt the lash of both when, determined to be on my knees at Sister Goda’s side before the bell for Compline was silenced, I failed to shut away the Abbey’s red chickens against the predations of the fox. The result next morning for the hens was bloody. So was the skin on my back, in righteous punishment, Mother Abbess informed me as she wielded the strap that hung from her girdle. It did not seem to me to be fair that by observing one rule I had broken another. Having not yet learnt the wisdom of concealing my thoughts, I said so. Mother Sybil’s arm rose and fell with even more weight.

I was set to collect up the poor ravaged bodies. Not that the flesh went to waste. The nuns ate chicken with their bread at noon the following day as they listened to the reading of the parable of the good Samaritan. My plate saw nothing but bread, and that a day old. Why should I benefit from my sins?

A vocation? God most assuredly had not blessed me with a vocation, if that meant to accept, obey and be grateful for my lot in life. And yet I knew no other life, neither would I. When I reached my fifteenth year, so I was informed by Sister Goda, I would take my vows and, no longer a novice, be clothed as a nun. I would be a nun for ever until God called me to the heavenly comfort of His bosom—or to answer for my sins in some dire place of heat and torment. From my fifteenth year I would not speak, except for an hour after the noon meal when I would be allowed to converse on serious matters. Which seemed to me little better than perpetual silence.

Silent for the rest of my life, except for the singing of the offices.

Holy Mother, save me! Was this all I could hope for? It was not my choice to take the veil. How could I bear it? It was beyond my understanding that any woman would choose this life enclosed behind walls, the windows shuttered, the doors locked. Why would any woman choose this degree of imprisonment rather than taste the freedom of life outside?

To my mind there was only one door that might open for me. To offer me an escape.

‘Who is my father?’ I asked Sister Goda. If I had a father, surely he would not be deaf to my entreaties.

‘God in Heaven is your Father.’ Sister Goda’s flat response dared me to pursue the matter as she turned the page of a psalter. ‘Now, if you will pay attention, my child, we have here a passage to study …’

‘But who is my father here—out there?’ I gestured towards the window that allowed the noise of the town to encroach, its inhabitants gathering vociferously for market.

The novice mistress looked at me, faintly puzzled. ‘I don’t know, Alice, and that’s the truth.’ She clicked her tongue against her teeth. ‘They said when you were brought here there was a purse of gold coins.’ She shook her head, her veil hanging as limp as a shroud around her seamed face. ‘But it’s not important.’ She shuffled across the room to search in the depths of a coffer for some dusty manuscript.

But it was important. A purse of gold? Suddenly it was very important. I knew nothing other than that I was Alice. Alice—with no family, no dowry. Unlike more fortunate sisters, no one came to visit me at Easter or Christmas. No one brought me gifts. When I took the veil, there would be no one to hold a celebration for me to mark my elevation. Even my habit would be passed down to me from some dead nun who, if fate smiled on me, resembled me in height and girth; if not, my new garment would enclose me in a vast pavilion of cloth, or exhibit my ankles to the world.

Resentment bloomed at the enormity of it. The question beat against my mind: Who is my father? What have I done to deserve to be so thoroughly abandoned? It hurt my heart.

‘Who brought me here, Sister Goda?’ I persisted.

‘I don’t recall. How would I?’ Sister Goda was brusque. ‘You were left in the Abbey porch, I believe. Sister Agnes brought you in—but she’s been dead these last five years. As far as I know, there is no trace of your parentage. It was not uncommon for unwanted infants to be abandoned at a church door, what with the plague … Although it was always said that …’

‘What was said?’

Sister Goda looked down at the old parchment. ‘Sister Agnes always said it was not what it seemed …’

‘What wasn’t?’

Sister Goda clapped her hands sharply, her gaze once more narrowing on my face. ‘She was very old and not always clear in her head. Mother Abbess says you’re most likely the child of some labourer—a maker of tiles—got on a whore of a tavern without the blessing of marriage. Now—enough of this! Set your mind on higher things. Let us repeat the Paternoster.’

So I was a bastard.

As I duly mouthed the words of the Paternoster, my mind remained fixed on my parentage, or lack of it, and what Sister Agnes might or might not have said about it. I was just one of many unwanted infants and should be grateful that I had not been left to die.

But it did not quite ring true. If I was the child of a tavern whore, why had I been taken in and given teaching? Why was I not set to work as one of the conversa, the lay sisters, employed to undertake the heavy toil on the Abbey’s lands or in the kitchens and bakehouse? True, I was clothed in the most worn garments, passed down from the sick and the dead, I was treated with no care or affection, yet I was taught to read and even to write, however poorly I attended to the lessons.

It was meant that I would become a nun. Not a lay sister.

‘Sister Goda—’ I tried again.

‘I have nothing to tell you,’ she snapped. There is nothing to tell! You will learn this text!’ Her cane cracked across my knuckles but without any real force. Perhaps she had already decided I was a lost cause, her impatience increasingly replaced by indifference. ‘And you will stay here until you do! Why do you resist? What else is there for you? Thank God on your knees every day that you are not forced to find your bread in the gutters of London. And by what means I can only guess!’ Her voice fell to a harsh whisper. ‘Do you want to be a whore? A fallen woman?’

I lifted a shoulder in what was undoubtedly vulgar insolence. ‘I am not made to be a nun,’ I replied with misguided courage.

‘What choice do you have? Where else would you go? Who would take you in?’

I had no answer. But as Sister Goda’s cane thwacked once more like a thunderclap on the wooden desk, indignation burned hot in my mind, firing the only thought that remained to me. If you do not help yourself, Alice, no one else will.

Even then I had a sharp precocity. Product, no doubt, of a wily labourer who tumbled a sluttish tavern whore after a surfeit of sour ale.

Chapter Two

WHEN I achieved my escape from the Abbey, it was not by my own instigation. Fate took a hand when I reached the age of fifteen years and it came as a lightning bolt from heaven.

‘Put this on. And this. Take this. Be at the Abbey gate in half an hour.’

The garments were thrust into my arms by Sister Matilda, Mother Abbess’s chaplain.

‘Why, Sister?’

‘Do as you’re told!’

I had been given a woollen kirtle, thin, its colour unrecognisable from much washing, and a long sleeveless overgown in a dense brown, reminiscent of the sludge that collected on the river bank after stormy weather. It too had seen better days on someone else’s back, and was far too short, exhibiting, as I had feared, my ankles. When I scratched indelicately, an immediate fear bloomed. I had inherited the fleas as well as the garments. A hood of an indeterminate grey completed the whole.

But why? Was I being sent on an errand? A feverish excitement danced over my skin. A lively fear as well—after all, life in the Abbey was all I knew—but not for long. If I was to escape the walls for only a day, it would be worth it. I was fifteen years old and the days of my transformation from novice to nun loomed, like the noxious overflowing contents of the town drain after heavy rainfall.

‘Where am I going?’ I asked the wagon master to whom I was directed, a dour man with a bad head cold and an overpowering smell of rancid wool. Sister Faith, keeper of the Abbey gate, had done nothing but point in his direction and close the door against me. The soft snick of the latch, with me on the outside, was far sweeter than any singing of the Angelus.

‘London. Master Janyn Perrers’s household,’ he growled, spitting into the gutter already swimming with filth and detritus from the day’s market dealings.

‘Pull me up, then,’ I ordered.

‘Tha’s a feisty moppet, and no mistake!’ But he grasped my hand in his enormous one and hauled me up onto the bales where I settled myself as well as I could. ‘God help th’man who weds you, mistress!’

‘I’m not going to be married,’ I retorted. ‘Not ever.’

‘And why’s that, then?’

‘Too ugly!’ Had I not seen it for myself? Since the day I had peered into my water bowl I had been shown the undisputable truth of my unlovely features in a looking glass belonging to a countess, no less. How would any man look at me and want me for his wife?

‘A man don’t need to look too often at the wench he weds!’

I did not care. I tossed my head. London! The wagon master cracked his whip over the heads of the oxen to end the conversation, leaving me to try to fill in the spaces. To my mind there was only one possible reason for my joining the household of this Janyn Perrers. My services as a maidservant had been bought, enough gold changing hands to encourage Mother Abbess to part with her impoverished novice who would bring nothing of fame or monetary value to the Abbey. As the wagon jolted and swayed, I imagined the request that had been made. A strong, hard-working girl to help to run the house. A biddable girl … I hoped Mother Abbess had not perjured herself.

I twitched and shuffled, impatient with every slow step of the oxen. London. The name bubbled through my blood as I clung to the lumbering wagon. Freedom was as seductive and heady as fine wine.

The noisome overcrowded squalor of London shocked me. The environs of Barking Abbey, bustling as they might be on market day, had not prepared me for the crowds, the perpetual racket, the stench of humanity packed so close together. I did not know where to look next. At close-packed houses in streets barely wider than the wagon, where upper storeys leaned drunkenly to embrace each other, blocking out the sky. At the wares on display in shop frontages, at women who paraded in bright colours. At scruffy urchins and bold prostitutes who carried on a different business in the rank courts and passageways. A new world, both frightening and seductive: I stared, gawped, as naive as any child from the country.

‘Here’s where you get off.’

The wagon lurched and I was set down, directed by a filthy finger that pointed at my destination, a narrow house taking up no space at all, but rising above my head in three storeys. I picked my way through the mess of offal and waste in the gutters to the door. Was this the one? It did not seem to be the house of a man of means. I knocked.

The woman who opened the door was far taller than I and as thin as a willow lath, with her hair scraped into a pair of metallic cylindrical cauls on either side of her gaunt face, as if she were encased in a cage. ‘Well?’

‘Is this the house of Janyn Perres?’

‘What’s it to you?’

Her gaze flicked over me, briefly. She made to close the door. I could not blame her: I was not an attractive object. But this was where I had been sent, where I was expected. I would not have the door shut in my face.

‘I have been sent,’ I said, slapping my palm boldly against the wood.

‘What do you want?’

‘I am Alice,’ I said, remembering, at last, to curtsey.

‘If you’re begging, I’ll take my brush to you …’

‘I’m sent by the nuns at the Abbey,’ I stated.

The revulsion in her stare deepened, and the woman’s lips twisted like a hank of rope. ‘So you’re the girl. Are you the best they could manage?’ She flapped her hand when I opened my mouth to reply that, yes, I supposed I was the best they could offer, since I was the only novice. ‘Never mind. You’re here now so we’ll make the best of it. But in future you’ll use the door at the back beside the privy.’

And that was that.

I had become part of a new household.

And what an uneasy household it was. Even I, with no experience of such, was aware of the tensions from the moment I set my feet over the threshold.

Janyn Perrers—master of the house, pawnbroker, moneylender and bloodsucker. His appearance did not suggest a rapacious man but, then, as I rapidly learned, it was not his word that was the law within his four walls. Tall and stooped with not an ounce of spare flesh on his frame and a foreign slur to his speech, he spoke only when he had to, and then not greatly. In his business dealings he was painstaking. Totally absorbed, he lived and breathed the acquisition and lending at extortionate rates of gold and silver coin. His face might have been kindly, if not for the deep grooves and hollow cheeks more reminiscent of a death’s head. His hair—or lack of—some few greasy wisps around his neck, gave him the appearance of a well-polished egg when he removed his felt cap. I could not guess his age but he seemed very old to me with his uneven gait and faded eyes. His fingers were always stained with ink, his mouth too when he chewed his pen.

He nodded to me when I served supper, placing the dishes carefully on the table before him: it was the only sign that he noted a new addition to his family. This was the man who now employed me and would govern my future.

The power in the house rested on the shoulders of Damiata Perrers, his sister, who had made it clear when I arrived that I was not welcome. The Signora. There was no kindness in her face. She was the strength, the firm grip on the reins, the imposer of punishment on those who displeased her. Nothing happened in that house without her knowledge or her permission.

There was a boy to haul and carry and clean the privy, a lad who said little and thought less. He led a miserable existence, gobbling his food with filthy fingers before bolting back to his own pursuits in the nether regions of the house. I never learned his name.

Then there was Master William de Greseley. He was a man who was and was not of the household since he spread his services further afield, an interesting man who took my attention but ignored me with a remarkable determination. A clerk, a clever individual with black hair and brows, sharp features much like a rat, and a pale face, as if he never saw the light of day. A man with as little emotion about him as one of the flounders brought home by Signora Damiata from the market, his employment was to note down the business of the day. Ink might stain Master Perrers’s fingers but I swore that it ran in Master Greseley’s veins. He disregarded me to the same extent as he was deaf to the vermin that scuttled across the floor of the room in which he kept the books and ledgers of money lent and reclaimed. I was wary of him. There was a coldness that I found unpalatable.

And then there was me. The maidservant who undertook all the work not assigned to the boy. And some that was.

Thus my first introduction to the Perrers family. And since it was a good score of miles away from Barking Abbey, it was not beyond my tolerance.

‘God help th’man who weds you, mistress!’

‘I’m not going to be married!’

Holy Mother! My vigorous assertion returned to mock me. Within a se’nnight I found myself exchanging marriage vows at the church door.

Given the tone of her remonstration, Signora Damiata was as astonished as I, and unpleasantly frank when I was summoned to join brother and sister in the parlour at the rear of the house, where, by the expression on the lady’s face, Master Perrers had just broken the news of his intent.

‘Blessed Mary! Why marry?’ she demanded. ‘You have a son, an heir, learning the family business in Lombardy. I keep your house. Why would you want a wife at your age?’ Her accent grew stronger, the syllables hissing over each other. ‘If you must, then choose a girl from one of our merchant families. A girl with a dowry and a family with some standing. Jesu! Are you not listening?’ She raised her fists as if she might strike him. ‘She is not a suitable wife for a man of your importance.’

Did I think that Master Perrers did not rule the roost? He looked briefly at me as he continued leafing through the pages of a small ledger he had taken from his pocket.

‘I will have this one. I will wed her. That is the end of the matter.’

I, of course, was not asked. I stood in this three-cornered dialogue yet not a part of it, the bone squabbled over by two dogs. Except that Master Perrers did not squabble. He simply stated his intention and held to it, until his sister closed her mouth and let it be. So I was wed in the soiled skirts in which I chopped the onions and gutted the fish: clearly there was no money earmarked to be spent on a new wife. Sullen and resentful, shocked into silence, certainly no joyful bride, I complied because I must. I was joined in matrimony with Janyn Perrers on the steps of the church with witnesses to attest the deed: Signora Damiata, grim-faced and silent; and Master Greseley, because he was available, with no expression at all. A few words muttered over us by a bored priest in an empty ritual, and I was a wife.

And afterwards?

No celebration, no festivity, no recognition of my change in position in the household. Not even a cup of ale and a bride cake. It was, I realised, nothing more than a business agreement, and since I had brought nothing to it, there was no need to celebrate it. All I recall was the rain soaking through my hood as we stood and exchanged vows and the shrill cries of lads who fought amongst themselves for the handful of coin that Master Perrers scattered as a reluctant sign of his goodwill. Oh, and I recall Master Perrers’s fingers gripping hard on mine, the only reality in this ceremony that was otherwise not real at all to me.

Was it better than being a Bride of Christ? Was marriage better than servitude? To my mind there was little difference. After the ceremony I was directed to sweeping down the cobwebs that festooned the storerooms in the cellar. I took out my bad temper with my brush, making the spiders run for cover.

There was no cover for me. Where would I run?

And beneath my anger was a dark lurking fear, for the night, my wedding night, was ominously close, and Master Perrers was no handsome lover.

The Signora came to my room, which was hardly bigger than a large coffer, tucked high under the eaves, and gestured with a scowl. In shift and bare feet I followed her down the stairs. Opening the door to my husband’s bedchamber, she thrust me inside and closed it at my back. I stood just within, not daring to move. My throat was so dry I could barely swallow. Apprehension was a rock in my belly and fear of my ignorance filled me to the brim. I did not want to be here. I did not want this. I could not imagine why Master Perrers would want me, plain and unfinished and undowered as I was. Silence closed round me—except for a persistent scratching like a mouse trapped behind the plastered wall.

In that moment I was a coward. I admit it. I closed my eyes.

Still nothing.

So I squinted, only to find my gaze resting on the large bed with its dust-laden hangings to shut out the night air. Holy Virgin! To preserve intimacy for the couple enclosed within. Closing my eyes again, I prayed for deliverance.

What, exactly, would he want me to do?

‘You can open your eyes now. She’s gone.’

There was humour in the gruff, accented voice. I obeyed and there was Janyn, in a chamber robe of astonishingly virulent yellow ochre that encased him from neck to bony ankles, seated at a table covered with piles of documents and heaped scrolls. At his right hand was a leather purse spilling out strips of wood, another smaller pouch containing silver coin. And to his left a branch of good-quality candles that lit the atmosphere with gold as the dust motes danced. But it was the pungent aroma, of dust and parchment and vellum, and perhaps the ink that he had been stirring, that made my nose wrinkle. Intuitively I knew that it was the smell of careful record-keeping and of wealth. It almost dispelled my fear.

‘Come in. Come nearer to the fire.’ I took a step, warily. At least he was not about to leap on me quite yet. There was no flesh in sight on either of us.

‘Here.’ He stretched toward the coffer at his side and scooped up the folds of a mantle. ‘You’ll be cold. Take it. It’s yours.’

This was the first gift I had ever had, given honestly, and I wrapped the luxurious woollen length round my shoulders, marvelling at the quality of its weaving, its softness and warm russet colouring, wishing I had a pair of shoes. He must have seen me shuffling on the cold boards.

‘Put these on.’

A pair of leather shoes of an incongruous red were pushed across the floor towards me. Enormous, but soft and warm from his own feet as I slid mine in with a sigh of pleasure.

‘Are you a virgin?’ he asked conversationally.

My pleasure dissipated like mist in morning sun, my blood running as icily cold as my feet, and I shivered. A goose walking over my grave. I did not want this old man to touch me. The last thing I wanted was to share a bed with him and have him fumble against my naked flesh with his ink-stained fingers, their untrimmed nails scraping and scratching.

‘Yes,’ I managed, hoping my abhorrence was not obvious, but Master Perrers was watching me with narrowed eyes. How could it not be obvious? I felt my face flame with humiliation.

‘Of course you are,’ my husband said with a laconic nod. ‘Let me tell you something that might take that anxious look from your face. I’ll not trouble you. It’s many a year since I’ve found comfort in a woman.’ I had never heard him string so many words together.

‘Then why did you wed me?’ I asked.

Since I had nothing else to give, I had thought it must be a desire for young flesh in his bed. So, if not that …? Master Perrers looked at me as if one of his ledgers had spoken, then grunted in what could have been amusement.

‘Someone to tend my bones in old age. A wife to shut my sister up from nagging me to wed a merchant’s daughter whose family would demand a weighty settlement.’

I sighed. I had asked for the truth, had I not? I would nurse him and demand nothing in return. It was not flattering.

‘Marriage will give security to you,’ he continued as if he read my thoughts. And then: ‘Have you a young lover in mind?’

‘No!’ Such directness startled me. ‘Well, not yet. I don’t know any young men.’

He chuckled. ‘Good. Then we shall rub along well enough, I expect. When you do know a young man you can set your fancy on, let me know. I’ll make provision for you when I am dead,’ he remarked.

He went back to his writing. I stood and watched, not knowing what to do or say now that he had told me what he did not want from me. Should I leave? His gnarled hand with its thick fingers moved up and down the columns, rows of figures growing from his pen, columns of marks in heavy black ink spreading from top to bottom. They intrigued me. The minutes passed. The fire settled. Well, I couldn’t stand there for ever.

‘What do I do now, Master Perrers?’

He looked up as if surprised that I was still there. ‘Do you wish to sleep?’

‘No.’

‘I suppose we must do something. Let me …’ He peered at me with his pale eyes. ‘Pour two cups of ale and sit there.’

I poured and took the stool he pushed in my direction.

‘You can write.’

‘Yes.’

In my later years at the Abbey, driven by a boredom so intense that even study had offered some relief, I had applied myself to my lessons with some fervour, enough to cause Sister Goda to offer a rosary in gratitude to Saint Jude Thaddeus, a saint with a fine reputation for pursuing desperate causes. I could now write with a fair hand.

‘The convents are good for something, then. Can you write and tally numbers?’

‘No.’

‘Then you will learn. There.’ He reversed the ledger and pushed it toward me across the table. ‘Copy that list there. I’ll watch you.’

I sat, inveterate curiosity getting the better of me, and as I saw what it was that he wished me to do, I picked up one of his pens and began to mend the end with a sharp blade my new husband kept for the purpose. I had learned the skill, by chance—or perhaps by my own devising—from a woman of dramatic beauty and vicious pleasures, who had once honoured the Abbey with her presence. A woman who had an unfortunate habit of creeping into my mind when I least wished her to be there. This was no time or place to think of her, the much-lauded Countess of Kent.

‘What are those?’ I asked, pointing at the leather purse.

‘Tally sticks.’

‘What do they do? What are the notches for?’

‘They record income, debts paid and debts owed,’ he informed me, watching me to ensure I didn’t destroy his pen. ‘The wood is split down the middle, each party to the deal keeping half. They must match.’

‘Clever,’ I observed, picking up one of the tallies to inspect it. It was beautifully made out of a hazel stick, and its sole purpose to record ownership of money.

‘Never mind those. Write the figures.’

And I did, under his eye for the first five minutes, and then he left me to it, satisfied.

The strangest night. My blood settled to a quiet hum of pleasure as the figures grew to record a vast accumulation of gold coin, and when we had finished the accounts of the week’s business, my husband instructed me to get into the vast bed and go to sleep. I fell into it, and into sleep, to the sound of the scratching pen. Did my husband join me when his work was done? I think he did not. The bed linen was not disturbed, and neither was my shift, arranged neatly from chin to ankles, decorous as any virgin nun.

It was not what I expected but it could have been much worse.

* * *

Next morning I awoke abruptly to silence. Still very early, I presumed, and dark because the bed curtains had been drawn around me. When I peeped out it was to see that the fire had burnt itself out, the cups and ledgers tidied away and the room empty. I was at a loss, my role spectacularly unclear. Sitting back against the pillows, reluctant to leave the warmth of the bed, I looked at my hands, turning them, seeing the unfortunate results of proximity to icy cold water, hot dishes, grimy tasks. They were now the hands of Mistress Perrers. I grimaced in a moment of hard-edged humour. Was I now mistress of the household? If I was, I would have to usurp Signora Damiata’s domain. I tried to imagine myself walking into the parlour and informing the Signora what I might wish to eat, the length of cloth I might wish to purchase to fashion a new gown. And then I imagined her response. I dared not!

But it is your right!

Undeniably. But not right at this moment. My sense of self-preservation was always keen. I redirected my thoughts, to a matter of more immediacy. What would I say to Master Perrers this morning? How would I address him? Was I truly his wife if I was still a virgin? Wrapping myself in my new mantle, I returned to my own room and dressed as the maidservant I still seemed to be, before descending the stairs to the kitchen to start the tasks for the new day. The fire would have to be laid, the oven heated. If I walked quickly and quietly I would not draw attention to myself from any quarter. Such was my plan, except that my clumsy shoes clattered on the stair, and a voice called out.

‘Alice.’

I considered bolting, as if I had not heard.

‘Come here, Alice. Close the door.’

I gripped hard on my courage. Had he not been kind last night? I redirected my footsteps, and there my husband of less than twenty-four hours sat behind his desk, head bent over his ledgers, pen in hand, in the room where he dealt with the endless stream of borrowers. No different from any other morning when I might bring him ale and bread. I curtseyed. Habits were very difficult to break.

He looked up. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Too much excitement, I expect.’ I might have suspected him of laughing at me but there was no change of expression on his dolorous features. He held out a small leather pouch, the strings pulled tight. I looked at it—and then at him.

‘Take it.’

‘Do you wish for me to purchase something for you, sir?’

‘It is yours.’ Since I still did not move, he placed it on the desk and pushed it across the wood toward me.

‘Mine …?’

It contained coin. And far more, as I could estimate, than was due to me as a maidservant. Planting his elbows on the desk, folding his hands and resting his chin on them, Janyn Perrers regarded me gravely, speaking slowly as if I might be a lackwit.

‘It is a bride gift, Alice. A morning gift. Is that not the custom in this country?’

‘I don’t know.’ How would I?

‘It is, if you will, a gift in recompense for the bride’s virginity.’

I frowned. ‘I don’t qualify for it, then. You did not want mine.’

‘The fault was mine, not yours. You have earned a bride gift by tolerating the whims and weaknesses of an old man.’ I think my cheeks were as scarlet as the seals on the documents before him, so astonished was I that he would thank me, regretful that my words had seemed to be so judgmental of him. ‘Take it, Alice. You look bewildered.’ At last what might have been a smile touched his mouth.

‘I am, sir. I have done nothing to make me worthy of such a gift.’

‘You are my wife and we will keep the custom.’

‘Yes, sir.’ I curtseyed.

‘One thing …’ He brushed the end of his quill pen uneasily over the mess of scrolls and lists. ‘It would please me if you would not talk about …’

‘About our night together,’ I supplied for him, compassion stirred by his gentleness, even as my eye sought the bag with its burden of coin. ‘That is between you and me, sir.’

‘And our future nights.’

‘I will not speak of them either.’ After all, who would I tell?

‘Thank you. If you would now fetch me ale. And tell the Signora that I will be going out in an hour.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And it will please me if you will call me Janyn.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I replied, though I could not imagine doing so.

I stood in the whitewashed passage outside the door and leaned back against the wall as if my legs needed the support. The purse was not a light one. It moved in my fingers, coins sliding with a comforting chink as I weighed it in my hand. I had never seen so much money all in one place in the whole of my life. And it was mine. Whatever I was or was not, I was no longer a penniless novice.

But what was I? It seemed I was neither flesh nor fowl. Here I stood in a house that was not mine, a wife but a virgin, with the knowledge that my marriage vows would make absolutely no difference to my role in the household. I would wager the whole of my sudden windfall on it. Signora Damiata would never retreat before my authority. I would never sit at the foot of the table.

A scuff of leather against stone made me look up.

I was not the only one occupying the narrow space. Detaching himself from a similar stance, further along in the shadows, Master Greseley walked softly towards me. Since there was an air of secrecy about him—of complicity almost—I hid the pouch in the folds of my skirt. Within an arm’s length of me he stopped, and leaned his narrow shoulder blades on the wall beside me, arms folded across his chest, staring at the opposite plasterwork in a manner that was not companionable but neither was it hostile. Here was a man adept through long practice at masking his intentions. As for his thoughts—they were buried so deep beneath his impassivity that it would take an earthquake to dislodge them.

‘You weren’t going to hide it under your pillow, were you?’ he enquired in a low voice.

‘Hide what?’ I replied, clutching the purse tightly.

‘The morning gift he’s just given you.’

‘How do you—?’

‘Of course I know. Who keeps the books in this household? It was no clever guesswork.’ A sharp glance slid in my direction before fixing on the wall again. ‘I would hazard that the sum was payment for something that was never bought.’

Annoyance sharpened my tongue. I would not be intimidated by a clerk. ‘That is entirely between Master Perrers and myself.’

‘Of course it is.’ How smoothly unpleasant he was, like mutton fat floating on water after the roasting pans had been scoured.

‘And nothing to do with you.’

He bowed his head. ‘Absolutely nothing. I am here only to give you some good advice.’

Turning my head I looked directly at him. ‘Why?’

He did not return my regard. ‘I have no idea.’

‘That makes no sense.’

‘No. It doesn’t. It’s against all my tenets of business practice. But even so. Let’s just say that I am drawn to advise you. Don’t hide the money under your pillow or anywhere else in this house. She’ll find it.’

‘Who?’ Although I knew the answer well enough.

‘The Signora. She has a nose for it, as keen as any mouse finding the cheese safe stored in a cupboard. And when she sniffs it out, you’ll not see it again.’

I thought about this as well. ‘I thought she didn’t know.’

‘Is that what Janyn told you? Of course she does. Nothing happens in this place without her knowledge. She knows you have money, and she doesn’t agree with it. Any profits are the inheritance of her nephew, Janyn’s son.’

The absent heir, learning the business in Lombardy. ‘Since you’re keen to offer advice, what do I do?’ I asked crossly. ‘Short of digging a hole in the garden?’

‘Which she’d find.’

‘A cranny in the eaves?’

‘She’d find that too.’

‘So?’ His smugness irritated me.

‘Give it to me.’

Which promptly dispersed my irritation. I laughed, disbelieving. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’

‘I take you for a sensible woman. Give it to me.’ He actually held out his hand, palm up. His fingers were blotched with ink.

‘I will not.’

He sighed as if his patience was strained. ‘Give it to me and I’ll use it to make you a rich woman.’

‘Why would you?’

‘Listen to me, Mistress Alice!’ I was right about the patience. His voice fell to a low hiss on the syllables of my name. ‘What keeps its value and lasts for ever?’

‘Gold.’

‘No. Gold can be stolen—and then you have nothing.’

‘Jewels, then.’

‘Same argument. Think about it.’

‘Then since you are so clever …’

‘Land!’ The clerk’s beady eyes gleamed. ‘Property. That’s the way to do it. It’s a generous purse he gave you. Give it to me and I will buy you property.’

For a moment I listened to him, seduced by the glitter in his gaze that was now holding mine. His nose almost twitched with the prospect. And then sense took hold. ‘But I cannot look after property! What would I do with it?’

‘You don’t have to look after it. There are ways and means. Give me your morning gift and I will show you how it’s done.’

It deserved some consideration. ‘What would you ask in return?’ I asked sharply.

‘Clever girl! I knew you had the makings of a business woman. I’ll let you know. But it will not be too great a price.’

I looked at him. What a cold fish he was. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘I think you have possibilities.’

‘As a landowner?’ It all seemed nonsense to me.

‘Why not?’

I didn’t have a reply. I stood in silence, the coins in my hand seemingly growing heavier as I slowly breathed, in and out. I tossed the little bag, and caught it.

‘We don’t have all day.’ Greseley’s admonition broke into my thoughts. ‘That’s my offer. Take it or leave it. But if you think to keep it safe within these walls, it will be gone before the end of the week.’

‘And I should trust you.’

Trust had not figured highly in my life. This strange man with his love for figures and documents, seals and agreements, who had sought me out and made me this most tempting of offers—should I hand over to him all I owned in the world? It was a risk. A huge risk. The arguments, conflicting, destructive of each other, rattled back and forth in my brain.

Say no. Keep it for yourself. Hide it where no one can find it.

Take the risk! Become a landowner.

He’ll take it and keep it for himself.

Trust him.

I can’t!

Why not?

My exchange of views came to an abrupt halt when the clerk pushed himself upright and began to walk away. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

And there was the final blast of the voice in my head. You can’t do this on your own, Alice, but Greseley can. This clever little louse has the knowledge. Learn from him. Use it to your own advantage.

Well, I would. ‘Stop!’ I called out.

He stopped, but he did not return; he simply stood there with his back to me.

‘I’ll do it,’ I told him.

He spun on his heel. ‘An excellent decision.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘A few days.’

I held up the pouch. Hesitated. Then dropped it into his outstretched palm. I was still wondering if I was an idiot. ‘If you rob me …’ I began.

‘Yes, Mistress Perrers?’ It caused me to laugh softly. It was the first time I had been addressed as such.

‘If you rob me, Master Greseley,’ I whispered, ‘I advise you to employ a taster before you eat or drink in this house.’

‘There’ll be no need, mistress.’ From his bland smugness, he thought I was making empty threats. I was not so sure. A good dose of wolfsbane masked by a cup of warmed ale would take out the strongest man. I would not care to be robbed.

The purse vanished into Greseley’s sleeve, and Greseley vanished along the corridor.

Would I live to regret this rash business dealing? All I knew was that it created a strange, turbulent euphoria that swept through me from my crown to my ill-shod feet.

Fool! Idiot girl! I berated myself with increasing fury over the following days. A sensible woman he called you. A business woman. And you let yourself be gulled! He knew how to wind you round his grubby fingers!

By God, he did! By the end of the week I knew I had seen the last of my morning gift. Greseley was elusive, exchanging not one word with me and avoiding my attempts to catch his eye. And when my impatience overcame my discretion: ‘What have you done with it?’ I growled in his ear as he slid onto a stool to break his fast.

‘Pass the jug of ale, if you please, mistress’ was all I got by way of reply. With one gulp he emptied his cup, crammed bread into his mouth, and left the room before I could pester him more.

‘Stir this pot,’ Mistress Damiata ordered, handing over a spoon.

Later that day he was sent into the city on business that kept him away overnight. How could I have been so ingenuous, to trust a man I barely knew? I had lost it. I had lost it all! I would never see one of those coins again, and my misery festered, even though I was kept hopping from morning to night. My mind began to linger lovingly on the effect of that large spoonful of wolfsbane on the scrawny frame of the clerk.

And then Greseley returned. He wouldn’t get away with ignoring me this time. Was he suffering from guilt? If he was, it did nothing to impair his appetite, as he chomped his way through slices of beef and half a flat bread, undisturbed by my scowling at him across the board.

‘We need to talk!’ I whispered, nudging him between his shoulder blades when I smacked a dish of herring in front of him.

His answering stare was cold and clear and without expression.

‘Careful, girl!’ snapped the Signora. ‘That dish! We’re not made of money!’

Greseley continued to eat with relish, but as I cleared the dishes, he produced a roll of a document from the breast of his tunic, like a coney from the sleeve of a second-rate jongleur, and tapped it against his fingertips before sliding it into an empty jug standing on the hearth, out of the Signora’s line of sight. It was not out of mine. My fingers itched to take it. I could sense it, like a burning brand below my heart.

At last. The kitchen was empty. Janyn closed the door on himself and his ledgers, the Signora climbed the stairs to her chamber, and I took the scroll from its hiding place and carried it to my room. Unrolling it carefully, I read the black script. No easy task. The legal words meant nothing to me, the phrases hard on my understanding, the script small and close written. But there was no doubting it. He had done what he had promised. There was my name: Alice Perrers. I was the owner of property in Gracechurch Street in the city of London.

I held it in my hands, staring at it, as if it might vanish if I looked away. Mine. It was mine. But what was it? And, more important, what did I do with it?

I ran Greseley to ground early next morning in the kitchen with his feet up on a trestle and a pot of ale beside him.

‘It’s all very well—but what am I expected to do with it?’

He looked at me as if I were stupid. ‘Nothing but enjoy the profits, mistress.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It doesn’t matter whether you do or not. It’s yours.’

He was watching me closely, as if to test my reaction. I did not see why he should, so I said what I wanted to say.

‘It does matter.’ And in that moment it struck home how much it meant to me. ‘It matters to me more than you’ll ever know.’ I glowered. ‘You won’t patronise me, Master Greseley. You will explain it all to me, and then I will understand. The property is mine and I want to know how it works.’ He laughed. He actually laughed, a harsh bark of a noise. ‘Now what?’

‘I knew I was right.’

‘About what?’

‘You, Mistress Perrers. Sit down, and don’t argue. I’m about to give you your first lesson.’

So I sat and Greseley explained to me the brilliance for a woman in my position of the legal device of ‘enfeoffment to use’. ‘The property is yours, and it remains yours,’ he explained. ‘But you allow others to administer it for you—for a fee, of course. You must choose wisely—a man with an interest in the property so that he will administer it well. Do you understand?’ I nodded. ‘You grant that man legal rights over the land, but you retain de facto control. See? You remain in ultimate ownership but need do nothing toward the day-to-day running of it.’

‘And can I make the agreement between us as long or as short as I wish?’

‘Yes.’

‘And I suppose I need a man of law to oversee this for me?’

‘It would be wise.’

‘What is this property that I now own, but do not own?’

‘Living accommodations—with shops below.’

‘Can I look at it?’

‘Of course.’

What else did I need to ask? ‘Was there any money leftover from the transaction?’

‘You don’t miss much, do you?’ He tipped out the contents of the purse at his belt and pushed across the board a small number of coins.

‘You said I needed a man of law.’ He regarded me without expression. ‘I suppose you would be my man of law.’

‘I certainly could. Next time, Mistress Perrers, we will work in partnership.’

‘Will there be a next time?’

‘Oh, I think so.’ I thought the slide of his glance had a depth of craftiness.

‘Is that good or bad—to work in partnership?’

Greseley’s pointed nose sniffed at my ignorance. He knew I could not work alone. But it seemed good to me. What strides I had made. I was a wife of sorts, even if I spent my nights checking Janyn’s tally sticks and columns of figures, and now I was a property owner. A little ripple of pleasure brushed along the skin of my forearms as the idea engaged my mind and my emotions. I liked it. And in my first deliberate business transaction, I pushed the coins back toward him.

‘You are now my man of law, Master Greseley.’

‘I am indeed, Mistress Perrers.’

The coins were swept into his purse with alacrity.

And where did I keep the evidence of my ownership? I kept it hidden on my person between shift and overgown, tied with a cord, except when I took it out and touched it, running my fingers over the wording that made it all official. There it was for my future. Security. Permanence. The words were like warm hands around mine on a winter’s day. Comforting.

I did not dislike Greseley as much as I once had.

Plague returned. The same dreaded pestilence that had struck without mercy just before my birth came creeping stealthily into London. It was the only gossip to be had in the streets, the market, the alehouses. It was different this time, so they said in whispers. The plague of children, they called it, striking cruelly at infants but not the hale and hearty who had reached adult years.

But the pestilence, stepping over our threshold, proved to be a chancy creature.

Of us all it was Janyn who was struck down. He drew aside the sleeve of his tunic to reveal the whirls of red spots as we gathered for dinner on an ordinary day. The meal was abandoned. Without a word Janyn walked up the stairs and shut himself in his chamber. Terror, rank and loathsome, set its claws into the Perrers household.

The boy disappeared overnight. Greseley found work in other parts of the city. Mistress Damiata fled with disgraceful speed to stay with her cousin whose house was uncontaminated. Who nursed Janyn? I did. I was his wife, even if he had never touched me unless his calloused fingers grazed mine when he pointed out a mistake in my copying. I owed him at least this final service.

From that first red and purple pattern on his arms there was no recovery.

I bathed his face and body, holding my breath at the stench of putrefying flesh. I racked my brains for anything Sister Margery, the Infirmarian at the Abbey, had said of her experiences of the pestilence. It was not much but I acted on it, flinging the windows of Janyn’s chamber wide to allow the escape of the corrupt air. For my own safety I washed my hands and face in vinegar, eating bread soaked in Janyn’s best wine—how Signora Damiata would have ranted at the waste—but for Janyn nothing halted the terrifying, galloping progress of the disease. The empty house echoed around me, the only sound the harsh breathing from my stricken husband and the approaching footsteps of death.

Was I afraid for myself?

I was, but if the horror of the vile swellings could pass from Janyn to me, the damage was already done. If the pestilence had the ability to hop across the desk where we sat to keep the ledgers, I was already doomed. I would stay and weather the storm.

A note appeared under the bedchamber door. I watched it slide slowly, from my position slumped on a stool from sheer exhaustion as Janyn laboured with increasingly distressed breaths. The fever had him in its thrall. Stepping softly to the door, listening to someone walking quietly away, I picked up the note and unfolded the single page, curiosity overcoming my weariness. Ha! No mystery after all. I recognised Greseley’s script with ease, and the note was written as a clerk might write a legal treatise. I sank back to the stool to read.

When you are a widow you have legal right to a dower—one third of the income of your husband’s estate. You will not get it.

You have by law forty days in which to vacate the house to allow the heir to take his inheritance. You will be evicted within the day.

As your legal man my advice: take what you can. It is your right. You will get nothing else that is due to you.

A stark warning. A chilling one. Leaving Janyn in a restless sleep, I began to search.

Nothing! Absolutely nothing!

Signora Damiata had done a thorough job of it while her brother lay dying. His room of business, the whole house was empty of all items of value. There were no bags of gold in Janyn’s coffers. There were no scrolls, the ledgers and tally sticks had gone. She had swept through the house, removing everything that might become an attraction for looters. Or for me. Everything from my own chamber had been removed. Even my new mantle—especially that—the only thing of value I owned.

I had nothing.

Above me in his bedchamber, Janyn shrieked in agony, and I returned to his side. I would do for him what I could, ruling my mind and my body to bathe and tend this man who was little more than a rotting corpse.

In the end it all happened so fast. I expect it was Janyn’s wine that saved me, but the decoction of green sage—from the scrubby patch in Signora Damiata’s yard—to dry and heal the ulcers and boils did nothing for him. Before the end of the second day he breathed no more. How could a man switch from rude health to rigid mortality within the time it took to pluck and boil a chicken? He never knew I was there with him.

Did I pray for him? Only if prayer was lancing the boils to free the foul-smelling pus. Now the house was truly silent around me, holding its breath, as I placed the linen gently over his face, catching a document that fell from the folds at the foot of the bed. And then I sat on the stool by Janyn’s body, not daring to move for fear that death noticed me too.

It was the clatter of a rook falling down the chimney that brought me back to my senses. Death had no need of my soul, so I opened the document that I still held. It was a deed of ownership in Janyn’s name, of a manor in West Peckham, somewhere in Kent. I read it over twice, a tiny seed of a plan beginning to unfurl in my mind. Now, here was a possibility. I did not know how to achieve what I envisaged, but of course I knew someone who would. How to find him?

I walked slowly down the stairs, halting halfway when I saw a figure below me.

‘Is he dead?’ Signora Damiata was waiting for me in the narrow hall.

‘Yes.’

She made the sign of the cross on her bosom, a cursory acknowledgement. Then flung back the outer door and gestured for me to leave. ‘I’ve arranged for his body to be collected. I’ll return when the pestilence has gone.’

‘What about me?’

‘I’m sure you’ll find some means of employment.’ She barely acknowledged me. ‘Plague does not quench men’s appetites.’

‘And my dower?’

‘What dower?’ She smirked.

‘You can’t do this,’ I announced. ‘I have legal rights. You can’t leave me homeless and without money.’

But she could. ‘Out!’

I was pushed through the doorway onto the street. With a flourish and rattle of the key, Signora Damiata locked the door and strode off, stepping through the waste and puddles.

It was a lesson to me in brutal cold-heartedness when dealing with matters of coin and survival. And there I was, sixteen years old to my reckoning, widowed after little more than a year of marriage, cast adrift, standing alone outside the house. It felt as if my feet were chained to the ground. Where would I go? Who would give me shelter? Reality was a bitter draught. London seethed around me but offered me no refuge.

‘Mistress Perrers.’

‘Master Greseley!’

For there he was—I hadn’t had to find him after all—emerging from a rank alley to slouch beside me. Never had I been so relieved to see anyone, but not without a shade of rancour. He may have lost a master too, but he would never be short of employment or a bed for the night in some merchant’s household. He eyed the locked door, and then me.

‘What did the old besom give you?’ he asked without preamble.

‘Nothing,’ I retorted. ‘The old besom has stripped the house.’ And then I smiled, waving the document in front of his eyes. ‘Except for this. She overlooked it. It’s a manor.’

Those eyes gleamed. ‘Is it, now? And what do you intend to do with it?’

‘I intend you to arrange that it becomes mine, Master Greseley. Enfeoffment for use, I think you called it.’ I could be a fast learner, and I had seen my chance. ‘Can you do that?’

He ran his finger down his nose. ‘Easy for those who know how. I can—if it suits me—have it made over to you as the widow of Master Perrers, and now femme sole.’

A woman alone. With property. A not unpleasing thought that made my smile widen.

‘And will it suit you, Master Greseley?’ I slid what I hoped was a persuasive glance at the clerk. ‘Will you do it for me?’

His face flushed under my gaze as he considered.

I softened my voice, adding a plea. ‘I cannot do this on my own, Master Greseley.’

He grinned, a quick slash of thin lips and discoloured teeth. ‘Why not? We have, I believe, the basis of a partnership here, Mistress Perrers. I’ll work for you, and you’ll put business my way—when you can. I’ll enfeoff the manor to the use of a local knight—and myself.’

So that was it. Master Greseley was not entirely altruistic, but willing with a little female enticement. How easily men could be seduced with a smile and outrageous flattery offered in sweet tones. He extended his hand. I looked at it: not over clean but with long, surprisingly elegant fingers that could work magic with figures far more ably than I. There on the doorstep of my erstwhile home, I handed over the document and we shook hands as I had seen Janyn do when confirming some transaction with a customer.

As I felt the grip of his rough clasp, I considered what I had just done. And how astonishing it was to me that an unpleasing face was no detriment to my achieving it. I had—as Greseley would say—a business partner.

‘You’ll not cheat me, will you?’ I frowned and made my voice stern.

‘Certainly not!’ His outrage was amusing. And then his brows twitched together suspiciously. ‘Where will you go?’

‘There’s only one place.’ I had already made my decision. There really was no other to be made. It would be a roof over my head and food in my belly, and far preferable to life on the streets or docks as a common whore. ‘Back to St Mary’s,’ I said. ‘They’ll take me in. I’ll stay there and wait for better times. Something will turn up.’

Greseley nodded. ‘Not a bad idea, all in all. But you’ll need this. Here.’ He rummaged in the purse at his belt and brought out two gold coins. ‘I’ll return these to you. They should persuade the Abbess to open the doors to you for a little time at least. Remember, though. You now owe me. I want it back.’

‘Where do I find you?’ I shouted, coarse as a fishwife, as he put distance between us, the proof of ownership of the manor at West Peckham stowed in his tunic.

‘Try the Tabard. At Southwark.’

That was as much as I got.

So I went back, where I had vowed I would never return, wheedling a ride in a wagon empty of all but the rank whiff of fish. I might own a manor and a house in London—I left both precious documents in Greseley’s care—but I was in debt to the tune of two gold nobles. Needs must. The coins did indeed open the doors of the Abbey to me, but they bought me no luxury. It was made clear to me that I must earn my keep and so I found myself joining the ranks of the conversa. A lay sister toiling for the benefit of the Brides of Christ. Perhaps it was the stink of salt cod clinging to my skirts that worked against me.

Why did I accept it?

Because the sanctuary it offered me was a temporary measure. I knew it, deep within me. I had supped in the outside world and found it to my taste. In those days of silent labour, a determination was born in me. I would never become a nun. I would never wed again at anyone’s dictates. At some point in the future, in Greseley’s clever hands, my land would bring me enough coin to allow me to live as a femme sole in my own house with my own bed and good clothing and servants at my beck and call.

I liked the image. It spurred me on as I scrubbed the nun’s habits and beat the stains from their wimples to restore them to pristine whiteness. I would make something of my life beyond the governance of others, neither nun nor wife nor whore. I would amount to something in my own right. But for now I was safe in the familiar surroundings of the Abbey, accepting the unchanging routine of work and prayer.

I’ll wait for better times, I had said to Greseley.

And I would wait with as much patience as I could muster. But not for too long, I prayed as my arms throbbed from wielding the heavy hoe amongst the Abbey cabbages.

I regretted the loss of my warm mantle.

Chapter Three

‘SHE’S here. She’s come.’ The whispers rustled like a brisk wind through a field of oats.

It was Vespers. We entered the Abbey church, the hush of habits and soft shoes a quiet sound against the paving, and we knelt, ranks of black veils and white wimples, I in a coarse fustian over-kirtle and hood with the rest of the conversa. Nothing out of the ordinary. The mind of every sister, choir or lay, centred on the need for God’s grace in a world of transgression. But not tonight. The sin of self-indulgence was rife, bright as the candle flames. Excitement was tangible, shivering in the air. For in the bishop’s own chair, placed to one side of the High Altar, sat the Queen of England.

From my lowly place in the choir stalls I could see nothing of Majesty, neither could I even hazard a guess as to why she would so honour us, the service proceeding as if that carved chair were unoccupied. The observance complete, the final blessing given, nuns and conversa stood as one, heads bowed, hands folded discreetly within sleeves. Mother Sybil genuflected before the altar and Majesty, still outside my vision, moved slowly through our midst towards the transept.

Slowly. Very slowly. Unobtrusively, I glanced out of the corner of my eye, my anticipation keen. In my life I had had only one brief acquaintance with a lady of the royal court. The Countess of Kent was a woman of some brilliance, a woman difficult to forget. She had taught me to mend her pens, and she taught me much else besides, mostly to my personal humiliation. As the Queen approached, I considered how the Countess had arrived at St Mary’s with dash and flair, announcing her arrival by courier and trumpet blast. How much more magnificent must be the Queen of England?

Even today I can recall my astonishment. I had envisaged a noble bearing, a gown in rich colours, sumptuous materials stitched with embroidery, with train and furred over-sleeves. A crown, a gold chain, gold and silver rings heavy with jewels. A presence of authority. I looked at the Queen of England, and looked again. She was well nigh invisible in her anonymity.

Philippa of Hainault.

The years had not treated this woman with gentleness. All trace of youth, any beauty she might have had as that young bride who had come to England from the Low Countries to wed our vigorous King Edward, more than thirty years ago now, all were lost to her. And where was the expression of regal power? She was not elegant. She was not tall. She did not overawe. She wore no jewels. As for her hair, it was completely obscured, every wisp and curl, by a severe wimple and veil. Queen Philippa was neither a handsome woman nor a leader of fashion.

Who could admire this aging, shuffling woman?

Majesty halted. There was the faintest gasp for breath. The Queen must be even older than I had thought. I looked again—longer than a glance—and chided myself for my lack of compassion. There was a reason for the excruciatingly slow progress. She was ill. She was in pain. With a hand resting heavily on the arm of her attendant, the Queen continued to make her small halting steps because each one pained her beyond endurance. It seemed to me that she could barely move her head, her neck and shoulders were so rigid with a spasm of the muscles. The hand that clutched the arm of her woman was swollen, the flesh as tight and shiny as the skin of a drum. No wonder she wore no rings. How would she push them beyond her swollen knuckles without unbearable discomfort?

Her Majesty was nearly level with me when she paused to draw another breath, and we curtseyed. I saw the substantial bosom of her gown rise sharply on the inhalation, her nostrils narrow and a crease deepen between her brows. Then the royal feet moved on—only to stumble on the uneven paving so that she fell. Without her grip on the arm of the young woman at her side, it would have been a disaster. As it was, she sank to her knees with a cry of agonised distress. Horrified by her suffering, I was unable not to look.

‘Help me,’ she murmured, of no one in particular, eyes closed tight in agony, her free hand outstretched to snatch at some invisible aid. ‘Dear God, help me!’ And Queen Philippa dropped her rosary beads. They slid from her fingers to fall with a little clatter of pearls and carved bone on the stones before her.

‘Help me to my feet …’

And because it seemed the obvious thing to do, the only thing to do, I stretched out my hand, and took hers in mine. I froze, my breath held hard. To take the hand of the Queen of England on sheer impulse? I would surely be punished for my presumption. I fell to my knees beside her as she gripped me as hard as she could. There was not much force in it, but she groaned as the skin covering her swollen flesh tightened with the effort.

‘Blessed Virgin!’ she murmured. ‘The pain is too much!’

The tension around us, the shocked stillness, held for a moment. Then all was movement and sound: the lady-in-waiting lifting Her Majesty to her feet in a flutter of anxiety; the Queen’s feverish clasp of my hand broken; the distress of her laboured breathing deepening. Looking up from where I was still on my knees, I discovered Queen Philippa in the midst of all the fuss regarding me. Once those eyes might have sparkled with happiness but now their rich brown hue was strained with years of suffering. I could not bear to see it, and lowered my gaze to where the rosary still lay on the floor. She was quite unable to stoop to recover the beads for herself, even if a woman of such rank would deem to pick up her own belongings.

So I picked it up for her.

I lifted the rosary and held it out, startled at my temerity, even without the sharp warning murmur of Mother Abbess, who was approaching, her habit billowing with the speed of her passage like a cloak in a gale, intent on snatching the rosary from me.

‘Thank you. I am very clumsy today, and you are very kind.’

Incredibly, the Queen’s words were for me. I felt the touch of her fingers on my hand. For a brief moment the devastation in her face was overlaid by a softness of gratitude.

‘Accept my apologies, Majesty.’ Mother Abbess directed toward me a look that boded ill for me in Chapter House the following day. ‘She should not have pushed herself forward in this manner. She has no humility.’

‘But she has come to my aid, like the good Samaritan to the traveller in distress,’ the Queen observed. ‘The Holy Virgin would honour such help to an old lady …’ She cried out, more sharply than before, one hand spread across the damask folds over her abdomen. ‘I need to sit down. My room, Isabella—take me to my room.’

And her attendant, with a fierce frown and a firm grip, lifted her to her feet.

‘I am so sorry, Isabella.’ The Queen’s voice caught on a sob.

‘You’re tired, Maman. Did I not say this was too much for you? You should listen to me!’

‘I am aware, Isabella. But some things needed to be done, and I could not wait.’

For the first time I did more than give passing cognisance to the Queen’s companion. So this was her daughter, the Princess Isabella. A tall, fair young woman with a sprightly demeanour and a barely disguised expression of utter boredom. How could I have ever mistaken her for a mere attendant? The Queen might be clothed in muted colours, but the Princess proclaimed her position in every embroidered thread and jewel from her gold crispinettes to her gilded shoes.

‘Some things could be left until you are recovered,’ Princess Isabella remarked crisply. I watched with pity as the little group made their way along the nave. At the Abbey door the Princess looked back, briefly, over her shoulder. Her gaze landed on me.

‘Don’t just stand there. Bring the rosary, girl.’

‘Something will turn up,’ I had said to Greseley. I did not need telling twice.

In spite of her daughter’s determination, the Queen refused to be put to bed.

‘I’ll be in my bed long enough when death takes hold of me.’

I stood inside the door of the Abbess’s parlour as the Queen was made comfortable in a high-backed chair with sturdy arms that would give her body some support. I could have put the rosary down on the travelling coffer beside the door and left, invisible to all as Isabella issued orders for a cup of heated wine and a fur mantle to warm the Queen’s trembling limbs. Stay! my instincts urged. So I stayed. If I stayed, perhaps the Queen would speak to me again. The kindness in her voice had stirred me, and now as I saw the woman behind the face of royalty, my heart hurt for her. She was ill, and her suffering was not only that of physical pain but also of grief. She was worn with it: black-cloaked death seemed to hover behind her shoulder. Never did I think to feel sorrow for a Queen, but on that evening I did.

‘Don’t tell the King, Isabella,’ she ordered, her voice harsh with exhaustion.

‘Why not?’ Isabella took her mother’s hand and pressed the wine cup into it.

‘Don’t speak of this. I forbid it. I do not wish him to be worried.’

Her eyes might still be closed, her voice a mere thread, but her will was strong. My admiration for her was profound, and my compassion. Did the King still love her? Had he ever loved her? Perhaps it was not expected between those of royal blood whose marriage had been contracted for political alliance. What must it be like to feel old and unwanted? And yet the Queen would protect her husband from concern over her pain.

It was as if she sensed the direction of my thoughts. Impatiently pushing aside Isabella’s hand with the cup, she straightened herself in the chair. And there it was after all. There was royalty. There was authority. In spite of the pain she could give her attention to me and smile. Her face warmed, the harsh lines smoothing, until she became almost comely. Had I thought her broad features lacked charm and beauty? I had been wrong.

She stretched out her hand with difficulty. ‘You have brought my rosary.’

‘Yes, Majesty.’

‘I told her to.’ Isabella poured a second cup of wine and drank it herself. ‘We were too busy with you to worry about a string of beads, if you recall, trying to prevent you from falling on the floor before a parcel of ignorant nuns.’

‘Nevertheless, it was well done.’ The Queen beckoned and I came to kneel before her. ‘A conversa, I see. Tell me your name.’

‘Alice.’

‘You have no desire to become a nun?’ Putting a hand beneath my chin, she lifted it and studied my face. ‘You have no calling?’

No one had ever asked me that before, or addressed me in so gentle a manner. There was a world of understanding in her eyes. Unexpectedly, unsettlingly, tears stung beneath my eyelids.

‘No, Majesty.’ Since she seemed interested, I told her. ‘Once I was a novice. And then a servant—who became a wife. Now I am a widow. And returned here as a lay sister.’

‘And is that your ambition? To remain here?’

Well, I would not lie. ‘No, Majesty. I will not stay longer than I must.’

‘So you have plans. How old are you?’

‘Almost seventeen years, I think. I am not a child, Majesty,’ I felt compelled to add.

‘You are to me!’ Her smile deepened momentarily. ‘Do you know how old I am?’

It seemed entirely presumptuous of me to even reply. ‘No, Majesty.’

‘Forty-eight years. I expect that seems ancient to you.’ It did. It seemed to me a vast age, and suffering had added a dozen more years to the Queen’s face. ‘I was younger than you when I came to England as a bride. Yet it seems no time to me. Life flies past.’

‘Take another drink, Maman.’ Isabella replaced the cup into the Queen’s hand, folding the swollen fingers gently around it. ‘I think you should rest.’

I expected to be dismissed, but the Queen was not to be bullied.

‘Soon, Isabella. Soon. But you, Alice. Have you no family?’

‘No, Majesty.’

‘And your father?’

‘I don’t know. A labourer in the town. A tiler, I think.’

‘I understand.’ And I felt that she did, despite the distance between us in years and rank. ‘How sad. You remind me of my own daughters. Margaret and Mary. Both dead of the plague September last.’

Isabella sighed heavily. ‘Maman …!’ How could I remind anyone of a Princess of the Blood?

‘You are of a similar age,’ she explained, as if I had spoken my doubt. ‘You are young to be a widow. Would you seek to wed again?’

‘Who would have me? I have no dowry,’ I stated with little attempt to hide my dissatisfaction. ‘All I can offer is …’ I closed my mouth.

‘What can you offer?’ the Queen asked as if she were genuinely interested.

I considered the sum of my talents. ‘I can read and write and figure, Majesty.’ Since someone actually showed an interest, there was no stopping me. ‘I can read French and Latin. I can keep accounts.’ Ingenuously, I was carried away with my achievements.

‘So much …’ I had made her smile again. ‘And how did you learn to keep accounts?’

‘Janyn Perrers. A moneylender. He taught me.’

‘And did you enjoy it? So tedious a task?’

‘Yes. I understood what I saw.’

‘You have a keen mind, Alice of the Accounts,’ was all she said. Perhaps I amused her. I wished I had not boasted of my hard-won skills. She took hold of one of my hands, to my embarrassment running her fingers over the evidence of hard digging in the heavy soil. My nails were cracked, the skin broken and the aroma of onions was keen, but she made no comment. ‘If you could choose your future path, Alice, what would it be?’

I replied without hesitation, thinking of Greseley, of the hopes that kept me from despair in the dark hours of the night. ‘I would have my own house. I would buy land and property. I would be dependent on no one.’

‘An unlikely ambition!’ Isabella’s remark interrupted, redolent of ridicule.

‘But a commendable one for all that.’ The Queen’s voice trembled. Isabella was instantly beside her. ‘Yes. I will rest now. Today is not a good day.’ She allowed her daughter to help her to her feet and moved slowly toward the bedchamber. Then she stopped and despite the discomfort looked back at me.

‘Alice, keep the rosary. It was a gift to me from the King when I gave birth to Edward, our first son.’ She must have read astonishment on my face. ‘It is not very valuable. He had little money to spend on fripperies in those days. I would like you to keep it as a memento of the day when you rescued the Queen from falling in public!’

The rosary. It was still gripped in one hand, the gold-enamelled beads of the Aves clutched so tight that they left impressions in my palm. The pearls that marked the Paternosters and Glorias were warm and so smooth. The Queen would give this to me? A gift from her husband? I coveted it—who would not? I wanted it for my own.

‘No …’ I said. I could not. I was not courteous, but I knew what would happen if I kept it. ‘We are not allowed possessions. We take a vow of poverty.’ I tried to explain my refusal, knowing how crude it must seem.

‘Not even a gift from a grateful Queen?’

‘It would not be thought suitable.’

‘And you would not be allowed to keep it?’

‘No, Majesty.’

‘No. I was thoughtless to offer it.’ The tormenting pain gripped her again and I was forgotten. ‘By the Virgin, I am tried beyond endurance today—take me to my bed, Isabella.’

Isabella manoeuvred the Queen through the doorway into the bedchamber, and I was left alone. Before I could change my mind I placed the rosary on the prie dieu and backed out of the room until I was standing outside the door. Quietly I closed it, leaning against it. I had refused a gift from a Queen. But what would be the good in my accepting what I would not be allowed to keep? The rosary, if I had it, would fall into the hands of Mother Abbess. I could see it in my mind’s eye attached to her silver-decorated girdle. As I could imagine my mantle gracing the shoulders of Signora Damiata.

If ever I accepted anything of value in my life, I must be certain it remained mine.

Queen Philippa and her sharp-tongued daughter did not stay beyond the night. As soon as the service of Prime was sung next morning, they made ready to depart, the Queen helped into her well-cushioned travelling litter by Sister Margery, who had made up a draught of tender ash leaves distilled in wine against the agony of a bone-shaking journey. I knew what was in it. Had I not helped to make the infusion?

‘Her Majesty suffers from dropsy,’ Sister Margery had pronounced with certainty. ‘I have seen it before. It is a terrible affliction. She will feel the effect of every rut and stumble.’

Sister Margery instructed Lady Isabella: too much would cripple the digestion; too little and the pain would remain intense. And here was a little pot of mutton fat pounded with vervain root. Smoothed on the swollen flesh of hands and feet, it would bring relief. I had done the work but it was not I who held the flask and offered the little pot. It was not I who received the Queen’s thanks. I was not even there. I heard the departure from the cellar where I was engaged in counting hams and barrels of ale.

Take me with you. Let me serve you.

A silent plea that she did not hear.

Why would she remember me? It was an occasion of moment in my life, it had no bearing on what a Queen might remember. She would have forgotten about me within the quarter-hour of my returning the rosary. But I did not forget Queen Philippa. She had the loving kindness in her homely face of the mother that I had never known.

I wondered what Greseley was doing, and if I would ever see him again. If he was taking care of the houses in Gracechurch Street and the little manor in West Peckham. Surely he could raise enough money from them for my own needs.

I prayed even more fervently over the hams than I had over the cabbages that it would be soon before my hopes died.

The hams and the cabbages were eaten, one with more relish than the other, the ale drunk and replaced by an inferior brew that brought down the ire of Mother Sybil on the brewer. Such tedious, unimportant events that barely ruffled my existence as high summer came and went, the early blossom on the gnarled trees in the orchard long gone. My patience ebbed and flowed, reaching painful depths in the nights when the silence closed around me like a shroud.

And then! Mother Abbess was in conversation with a tall, well-dressed man, perhaps a courier, to judge from his riding gear of fine wool and leather, accompanied by an elderly thick-set groom who held the reins of a fine gelding, and a small but well-armed escort, sword and bow very evident.

I took it all in at a glance. Barely had I considered why I had been summoned when the courier turned a penetrating stare toward me.

‘You are Alice?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Conscious of my dishevelled state and the mud on my shoes—I had been kneeling beneath the low branches in the orchard to collect the fallen plums and damsons when I had been fetched—I made a desultory attempt to beat soil and grass from my skirts. The shoes were beyond remedy.

‘You are to go with me, mistress.’ He looked me up and down and from the narrowing of his eyes found me wanting. ‘You will need a cloak.’ And to the Abbess, ‘Provide one for her, if you please.’

I looked to Abbess Sybil for instruction. Mother Abbess lifted a shoulder as if denying any complicity in what had been arranged. Had my labours been bought again? Holy Virgin! Not another marriage. The man continued to address me, impervious and uninformative.

‘Can you ride, mistress?’

‘No, sir.’

He motioned to the groom. ‘She’ll ride pillion behind you, Rob. She’s no weight to speak of.’

Within minutes I was bundled into a coarsely woven cloak and hoisted onto the broad rump of the groom’s mare, as if I were a cord of firewood.

‘Hold tight, mistress,’ growled the man called Rob.

I clutched the sides of his leather jerkin as the animal stamped and sidled. The ground seemed far away and my balance was awry. At a signal from the man who had so smoothly rearranged my future, the escort fell in and we rode through the streets of the town and into the open country without a further word.

‘Sir?’ I addressed the back of the courier, who was now riding a little way ahead of me. No reply, so I raised my voice. ‘Sir? Where are we going?’

He did not turn his head. He might have addressed me as mistress, but it seemed I was not worthy of any further respect. ‘To Havering-atte-Bower.’

It meant nothing to me. ‘Why?’

‘The Queen has sent for you.’

I could not believe it. What had caused her to remember me, when I had done nothing but pick up her rosary? Nevertheless, the thrill of unknown adventure placed a cold hand on my nape and I shuddered. ‘Is Havering-atte-Bower, then, a royal palace?’ I asked.

The man slowed his horse and gestured the groom to pull alongside. On a level, he reined in his mount, allowing me to read his unspoken thoughts as clear as figures in a ledger. My kirtle and overgown bore the sticky remnants of the fallen fruit in St Mary’s orchard, my hair was bound up in a length of coarse cloth, the borrowed cloak was far beyond respectability. Kicking his mount into a walk, we plodded on side by side as he considered what he thought of me, and what he would deign to tell me.

‘Why would the Queen send for me?’ I asked.

‘I have no idea. Her Majesty will doubtless tell you.’

He shortened his reins as if to push on with more speed, our conversation finished. But I wanted more.

‘Who are you, sir?’

He gave no reply, through choice, I decided, rather than because he had not heard me, so I took the time to appraise him. Nothing out of the way. He was neither young nor old, with regular features, a little stern, a little austere. He was certainly used to command but I thought he was not a soldier. Neither was he the courier I had first thought him. He had too much authority for that. His eyes were a mix of green and brown, sharp and bright, like those of a squirrel. I thought him rather pompous for a man who could not be considered old. So we would ride to Havering-atte-Bower in total silence, would we? I thought not. I held tight to Rob’s tunic and leaned toward my reluctant companion.

‘I have much to learn, sir,’ I began. ‘How far to Havering-atte-Bower?’

‘About two hours. Three if you don’t get a move on.’

I ignored the jibe. ‘Time enough, then. You could help me. You could tell me some of the things I don’t know.’

‘Such as?’

‘You could tell me how to behave when we arrive,’ I suggested solemnly, at the same time widening my eyes in innocent enquiry. And I saw him waver. ‘And how do I address you, sir?’

‘I am William de Wykeham. And you, I suspect, are no wiser.’

I smiled deliberately. Winsomely, all demure insouciance, except for the tilt of my chin. How best to seduce information from a man than get him to talk of what was important to him? I had learnt that from both Janyn and Greseley. Talk about money and rates of interest and they would eat out of your hand. ‘I am no wiser yet,’ I replied. ‘But I will be if you will be my informant. What do I call you? What do you do?’

‘Wykeham will do. I serve His Majesty. And occasionally Her Majesty, Queen Philippa.’ And I saw the pride in him. ‘I am destined for the church—and to build palaces.’

‘Oh.’ It seemed a laudable occupation. ‘Have you built many?’

And that was it. The door opened wide. For the rest of the journey Wykeham recounted to me his ambitions and achievements. Turrets and arches, buttresses and pillars. Curtain walls and superior heating methods. Holy Virgin! He was as dull as a meatless meal in Lent, as incapable of luring a nun from her vows as Janyn Perrers or Greseley. Perhaps all men in essence were as dry as dust. When I wanted to hear the minutiae of life in a royal palace, the food, the fashions, the important personages, all I got was a description of the new tower at Windsor, but I made no effort to deter him. Were all men so easy to encourage into conversation? Far easier than women, I thought. A smile, a question, an appeal to their achievements, their pride. I learnt very little about life at Havering during the journey, but a great deal about castle building. And then we were approaching an impressive array of towers, half-hidden in the trees.

‘Your journey is at an end, Mistress Alice. And I forgot …’ Transferring his reins into one hand, he fished in his saddlebag. ‘Her Majesty sent you this. She thought you might like it—to give you God’s comfort on the journey.’ He dropped the rosary into my hand. ‘Not that I think you need it. You can talk more than any woman I know.’

I was instantly torn between amazement at the gift of the rosary and the unfairness of the accusation: the unfairness won. ‘You’ve done more talking than I have!’

‘Nonsense.’

‘Stop fussing, woman!’ Rob gave a rough growl. ‘You’re as fret as a flea on a warm dog.’

I laughed. ‘I ache!’

‘Your arse’ll recover soon enough. My sides are stripped raw with your clutchings!’

Even Wykeham laughed. The warmth of it—friendly and uncritical—helped to ease my growing apprehension of what awaited me.

‘Why would she send me something so precious?’ I held the rosary up so that the sun caught the beads, turning them into a rainbow of iridescence.

My companion surveyed me from my cloth-bound hair to my mud-smeared hem as if it was far beyond his comprehension. ‘I really have no idea.’

Neither had I.

Chapter Four

Havering-atte-Bower

I KNEW nothing of royal palaces in those days when I arrived in Wykeham’s dusty wake. Neither was the grandeur of the place my first priority. Every one of my muscles groaned at its ill usage. We could not come to a halt fast enough for me; all I wanted was to slide down from that lumbering creature and set my feet on solid ground. But once in the courtyard at Havering I simply sat and stared.

‘Are you going to dismount today, mistress?’ Wykeham asked brusquely. He was already dismounted and halfway up the steps to the huge iron-studded door.

‘I’ve never seen …’ He wasn’t listening so I closed my mouth.

I have never seen anything so magnificent.

And yet it was strangely welcoming, with a seductive charm that St Mary’s with its grey stone austerity lacked. It seemed vast to me yet I was to learn that for a royal palace it was small and intimate. The stonework of the building glowed in the afternoon sunshine, a haphazard arrangement of rooms and apartments, the arches of a chapel to the right, the bulk of the original Great Hall to my left, then further outbuildings, sprawling outwards from the courtyard. Roofs and walls jutted at strange angles as the whim had taken the builders over the years. And if that was not enough, the whole palace was hemmed about by pasture and lightly wooded stretches, like a length of green velvet wrapped round a precious jewel.

It filled me with awe.

‘It’s beautiful!’

My voice must have carried. ‘It’ll do, for now,’ Wykeham growled. ‘The King’s grandfather built it—the first Edward. The Queen likes it—that’s the main thing—it’s her manor. It will be better when I’ve had my hands on it. I’ve a mind to put in new kitchens now that the King has his household here too.’ He fisted his hands on his hips. ‘For God’s sake, woman. Get off that animal.’

I slid down from the rump, staggering when my feet hit the ground, grateful when Wykeham strode forward to grip my arm.

‘Thank you, sir.’ I held on tight for a moment as my muscles quivered in protest.

‘I am at your disposal,’ he replied wryly. ‘Tell me when you can stand without falling over.’

Wykeham led the way up the shallow flight of steps, pushing open the door and stepping into the Great Hall. It was an echoing space, tables and trestles cleared away for the day except for the solid board on the dais at the far end. Cool after the heat of the sun, it was pleasant just to be there, the rafters above my head merging into deep shadows striped with soft bars of sunlight. Like the coat of a tabby cat. Servants moved quietly, replacing the wall sconces. A burst of laughter came from behind the screens at the far end that closed off the entrance to the kitchens. The tapestries on the walls glowed with rich colour, mirrored in the tiling beneath my feet.

I looked round in stark admiration. Was this where the Countess of Kent lived, that arrogant being who had left such an indelible impression on my younger self? I glanced at the shadows as if I might see her, watching me, judging me, before I chided myself for my foolishness. If the Countess had fulfilled her ambitions, she would be seated in the opulent splendour of the Queen’s private apartments, sipping wine, while a servant brushed her magnificent hair. If the serving woman’s comb happened to catch and drag on a tangle, the Countess would slap her without compunction.

A movement caught my interest. A maidservant crossed the room, busy with a tray of cups and a flagon, with a brief curtsey in Wykeham’s direction. My eye followed her. Was this, then, to be my destiny? To work in the kitchens of the royal palace? But why? Did the Queen not have enough servants? If she needed more, would her steward not find enough willing girls from the neighbouring villages? I could not see why she would bring me all the way from the Abbey to be a serving wench. Perhaps she needed a tirewoman, one who could read and write, but I hardly had the breeding for it. So why, in the name of the Blessed Virgin, was I here? The Queen would hardly stand in need of my meagre talents.

‘This way.’ Wykeham was striding ahead.

Behind us in the doorway a commotion erupted. Wykeham and I, and everyone in the Hall, turned to look. A man had entered to stand under the door arch. He was silhouetted by the low rays of the afternoon sun so that it was impossible to see his features, only his stature and bearing. Tall, with the build of a soldier, a man of action. Around his feet pushed and jostled a parcel of hounds and alaunts. On his gauntleted wrist rode a hooded goshawk. As the hawk shook its pinions, the man moved forward a step, into a direct sunbeam, so that he gleamed with a corona of light around head and shoulders, like one of the saints in the glazed windows of the Abbey. Crowned with gold.

Then, with another step, the moment passed. He was enclosed in soft shadow, an ordinary man again. And I was distracted when the hounds bounded forward, circling the Hall, sniffing at my skirts. Having no knowledge of such boisterous animals, I stepped back, wary of slavering mouths and formidable bodies. Wykeham bowed whilst I was engaged in pushing aside an inquisitive alaunt.

Wykeham cleared his throat.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

In reply Wykeham took hold of the ancient cloak that still enveloped me from chin to toe and twitched it off, letting it fall to the floor. I stiffened at this presumptuous action, took breath to remonstrate, when a voice, a strikingly beautiful voice, cut across the width of the Hall.

‘Wykeham, by God! Where’ve you been? Why are you always impossible to find, man?’

It was a clear-timbred voice, filling the space from walls to rafters. And striding toward us was the owner. The man with the raptor.

Wykeham bowed again, with what could have been construed as a scowl in my direction, so I curtseyed. The newcomer looked to me like a huntsman strayed into the Hall after a day’s exercise, looking to find a cup of ale or a heel of bread as he covered the ground with long loping strides, as lithe as the hound at his side.

And then he was standing within a few feet of me.

‘Sire!’ Wykeham bowed once more.

The King!

I sank to the floor, holding my skirts, my flushed face hidden. How naive I was. But how was I to know? He did not dress like a king. Then I looked up and saw him not a score of feet distant, and knew that he did not need clothing and jewels to proclaim his superiority. What a miraculous, god-like figure he was. A man of some age and experience, but he wore the years lightly. Handsome without doubt with a broad brow and a fine blade of a nose complemented by luxurious flaxen hair that shone as bright as silver. Here was no dry-as-dust dullard. The King shone like a diamond amongst worthless dross.

‘It’s the water supply!’ the King announced.

‘Yes, Sire. I have it in hand,’ Wykeham replied calmly.

‘The Queen needs heated water.’

The King’s complexion might once have been fair but his skin was tanned and seamed from an outdoor life in sun and cold. What a remarkable face he was blessed with, with blue eyes as keen as those of the raptor on his fist, whose hood he was in the process of removing. And what fluidity and grace there was about his movements as he unclipped his cloak, one-handed, swung it from his shoulder and threw it to a page who had followed him across the Hall. How had I not known that this was King Edward? At his belt was a knife in a jewelled scabbard, in his hat a ruby brooch pinning a peacock feather into jaunty place. Even without the glitter of gems, I should have known. He had a presence, the habit of command, of demanding unquestioning obedience.

So this was Queen Philippa’s magnificent husband. I was dazzled.

I stood, my heart beating fast, aware of nothing but my own unfortunate apparel, the heap of the disreputable mantle at my feet. But the King was not looking at me. Was I not more poorly clad than any of the servants I had seen in the palace? He would think—if he thought at all—that I was a beggar come to receive alms from the palace kitchens. Even the raptor eyed me as if I might be vermin and worth the eating.

The King swept his arm out in a grand gesture. ‘Out! All of you!’ The dogs obediently vanished through the door in a rush of excitement. ‘Will—I’ve been looking at the site for the bath house you proposed.’ He was close enough to clip Wykeham in an affectionate manner on his shoulder. ‘Where’ve you been?’

I might as well not have been there.

‘I’ve been to St Mary’s at Barking, Sire.’ Wykeham smiled.

‘Barking? Why in God’s name?’

‘Business for the Queen, Sire. A new chantry for the two dead Princesses.’

The King nodded. ‘Yes, yes. I’d forgotten. It gives her comfort and—before God!—precious little does.’ And at last he cast a cursory eye over me. ‘WhO’s this? Someone I employ?’ Removing the beaver hat with its brooch and feather, he inclined his head with grave courtesy, even though he thought I was a serving wench. His gaze travelled over my face in a cursory manner. I made another belated curtsey. The King tilted his chin at Wykeham, having made some judgement on me. ‘St Mary’s, you said. Have you helped one of the sisters to escape, Will?’

Wykeham smiled dryly. ‘The Queen sent for her.’

Those sharp blue eyes returned. ‘One of her waifs and strays perhaps. To be rescued for her own good. What’s your name, girl?’

‘Alice, Sire.’

‘Glad to escape?’

‘Yes, Sire.’ It was heartfelt, and must have sounded it.

And Edward laughed, a sound of great joy that made me smile too. ‘So would I be. Serving God’s all very well, but not every hour of every day. Do you have talents?’ He frowned at me as if he could not imagine it. ‘Play a lute?’ I shook my head. ‘Sing? My wife likes music.’

‘No, Sire.’

‘Well, I suppose she has her reasons.’ He was already losing interest, turning away. ‘And if it makes her happy … Come here!’

I started, thinking that he meant me, but he clicked his fingers at a rangy alaunt that had slunk back into the Hall and was following some scent along the edge of a tapestry. It obeyed to fawn and rub against him as he twisted his fingers into its collar. ‘Tell Her Majesty, Will—No, on second thoughts, you come with me. You’ve completed your task for the Queen. I’ve demands on your time for my new bath house.’ He raised his voice. ‘Joscelyn! Joscelyn!’

A man approached from where he had been waiting discreetly beside the screen.

‘Yes, Sire.’

‘Take this girl to the Queen. She has sent for her. Now, Will …’ They were already knee-deep in planning. ‘I think there’s the perfect site. Let me get rid of these dogs and birds …’ Whistling softly to the raptor on his wrist, the King headed to the door. Wykeham followed. They left me without a second look. Why would they not?

Sir Joscelyn, who I was to learn was the royal steward, beckoned me to follow him but I hesitated and looked back over my shoulder. Wykeham was nodding, my last view of him gesturing with his hands as if describing the size and extent of the building he envisaged. They laughed together, the King’s strong voice overlaying Wykeham’s softer responses. And then he was gone with the King, as if my last friend on earth had deserted me. My only friend. And, of course, he wasn’t, but who else did I know here? I would not forget his brusque kindness. As for the King, I had expected a crown or at least a chain of office. Not a pack of dogs and a hawk. But there was no denying the sovereignty that sat as lightly on his shoulders as a summer mantle.

‘Come on, girl. I haven’t got all day.’

I sighed and followed the steward to discover what would become of me as one of the Queen’s habitual waifs and strays. I stuffed the rosary that I still clutched into the bosom of my overgown and followed as I had been bidden.

The Queen’s apartments were silent. Finding no one in any of the antechambers to whom he could hand me over, Sir Joscelyn rapped on a door, was bidden to enter and did so, drawing me with him. I found myself on the threshold of a large sun-filled room so full of colour and activity and soft chatter, of feminine glamour, that it filled my whole vision, more than even the grandeur of the Great Hall. Here was every hue and tint I could imagine, creating butterflies of the women who inhabited the room. Ill-mannered certainly, but I stared at so beguiling a scene. There they were, chattering as they stitched, books and games to hand for those who wished, not an enshrouding wimple or brow-hugging veil amongst them. A whole world of which I had no knowledge to enchant ear and eye. The ladies talked and laughed; someone was singing to the clear notes of a lute. There was no silence here.

I could not see the Queen in their midst. Neither, to my relief, could I see the Countess of Kent.

The steward cast an eye and discovered the face he sought.

‘My lady.’ His bow was perfection. Learning fast, I curtseyed. ‘I would speak with Her Majesty.’

Princess Isabella looked up from the lute she was playing but her fingers continued to strum idly over the strings. Now I knew the source of her beautiful fairness: she was her father’s daughter in height and colouring.

‘Her Majesty is indisposed, Joscelyn. Can it wait?’

‘I was commanded to bring this person to Her Majesty.’ He nudged me forward with haughty condescension. I curtseyed again.

‘Why?’ Her gaze remained on the lute strings. She was not the King’s daughter in kindness.

‘Wykeham brought her, my lady.’

The Princess’s eye lifted to take in my person. ‘Who are you?’

‘Alice, my lady.’ There was no welcome here. Not even a memory of who I was. ‘From St Mary’s Abbey at Barking, my lady.’

A line dug between Isabella’s brows, then smoothed. ‘I remember. The girl with the rosary—the one who worked in the kitchens or some such.’

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Her Majesty sent for you?’ Her fingers strummed over the lute strings again and her foot tapped impatiently. ‘I suppose I must do something with you.’ The glint in her eye, I decided, was not friendly.

One of the ladies approached to put her hand on the Princess’s shoulder with the confidence of long acquaintance. ‘Play for us, Isabella. We have a new song.’

‘With pleasure. Take the girl to the kitchens, Joscelyn. Give her a bed and some food. Then put her to work. I expect that’s what Her Majesty intended.’

‘Yes, my lady.’

Isabella had already given her attention to the ladies and their new song. The steward bowed himself out, pushing me before him, the door closing on that magical scene. I had not managed to step beyond the threshold, and I was shaken by a desire to do so, to be part of the life that went on behind that closed door.

Sir Joscelyn strode off without a word, expecting me to follow, as I did. I should be grateful that I was being given food and a place to sleep. Would life as a kitchen wench at Havering-atte-Bower be better or worse than as a conversa in the Abbey at Barking? Would it be better than life as a drudge in the Perrers household?’ I was about to find out, thanks to the effortless malice of Princess Isabella, for I knew, beyond doubt, that the Queen had not brought me all the way from Barking to pluck chickens in her kitchens. It was all Isabella’s fault. I knew an enemy when I saw one.

‘This girl, Master Humphrey …’ The steward’s expression spoke his contempt. ‘Another of Her Majesty’s gutter sweepings to live off our charity.’

A grunt was all the reply he got. Master Humphrey was wielding a cleaver on the carcass of a pig, splitting it down the backbone with much-practised skill.

‘The Lady said to bring her to you.’

The cook stopped, in mid-chop, and looked up under grizzled brows. ‘And what, may I ask, do I do with her?’

‘Feed her. Give her a bed. Clothe her and put her to work.’

‘Ha! Look around you, Jos! What do you see?’

I looked also. The kitchen was awash with activity: on all sides scullions, spit boys, pot boys, bottle washers applied themselves with a racket as if all hell had broken loose. The heat was overpowering from the ovens and open fires. I could already feel sweat beginning to trickle down my spine and dampen my hair beneath my hood.

‘What?’ Sir Joscelyn growled. I thought he did not approve of the liberty taken with his name.

‘I don’t employ girls, Jos. They’re not strong enough. Good enough for the dairy and serving the dishes—but not here.’ The cook emphasised the final word with a downward sweep of his axe.

‘Well, you do now. Princess Isabella’s orders. Kitchens, she said.’

Another grunt. ‘And what the Lady wants …!’

‘Exactly.’

Sir Joscelyn duly abandoned me in the midst of the teaming life of Havering’s kitchens. I recognised the activities—the cleaning, the scouring, the chopping and stirring—but my experience was a pale shadow to them. The noise was ear-shattering. Exhilarating. Shouts and laughter, hoots of ridicule, bellowed orders, followed inevitably by oaths and complaints. There seemed to be little respect from the kitchen lads, but the cook’s orders were carried out with a promptness that suggested a heavy hand if they transgressed them. And the food. My belly rumbled at the sight of it. As for the scents of roasting meat, of succulent joints …

‘Don’t stand there like a bolt of cloth.’

The cook, throwing down his axe with a clatter, gave me no more than a passing look, but the scullions did, with insolent grins and earthy gestures. I might not have much experience of such signs with tongues and fingers—except occasionally in the market between a whore and a dissatisfied customer—but it did not take much imagination. They made my cheeks glow with a heat that was not from the fire.

‘Sit there.’ Master Humphrey pressed down on my shoulder with a giant hand, and so I did at the centre board, sharing it with the pig. A bowl of thick stew was dumped unceremoniously in front of me, a spoon pushed into my hand and a piece of stale wastel bread thrown down on the table within reach.

‘Eat, then—and fast. There’s work to be done.’

I ate, without stopping. I drank a cup of ale handed to me. I had not realised how hungry I was.

‘Put this on.’

A large apron of stained linen was held out by Master Humphrey as he carried a tray of round loaves to thrust into one of the two ovens. It was intended for someone much larger, and I hitched it round my waist or I would have tripped on it. I was knotting the strings, cursing Isabella silently under my breath, when the cook returned.

‘Now! Let me look at you!’ I stood before him. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Alice.’

‘Well, then, Alice, no need to keep your eyes on your feet here or you’ll fall on your arse.’ His expression was jaundiced. ‘You’re not very big.’

‘She’s big enough for what I’ve in mind!’ shouted one of the scullions, a large lad with tow hair. A guffaw of crude laughter.

‘Shut it, Sim. And keep your hands to yourself or …’ Master Humphrey seized and wielded his meat cleaver with quick chopping movements. ‘Pay them no heed.’ He took my hands in his, turned them over. ‘Hmm. What can you do?’

I did not think it mattered what I said, given the continuing obscenities from the two lads struggling to manhandle a side of venison onto a spit. I would be given the lowliest of tasks. I would be a butt of jokes and innuendo.

‘Come on, girl! I’ve never yet met a woman with nothing to say for herself!’

So far I had been moved about like the bolt of cloth he had called me, but if this was to be my future I would not sink into invisibility. With Signora Damiata I had controlled my manner because to do otherwise would have called down retribution. Here I knew that I must stand up for myself and demand some respect.

‘I can do that, Master Humphrey. And that.’ I pointed at the washing and scouring going on in a tub of water. ‘I can do that.’ A small lad was piling logs on the fire.

‘So could an imbecile!’ The cook aimed a kick at the lad at the fire, who grinned back.

‘I can make bread. I can kill those.’ Chickens clucking unsuspectingly in an osier basket by the hearth. ‘I can do that.’ I pointed to an older man who was gutting a fish, scooping the innards into a basin with the flat of his hand. ‘I can make a tincture to cure a cough. And I can make a—’

‘My, my. What an addition to my kitchen.’ Master Humphrey gripped his belt and made a mocking little bow. He did not believe half of what I said.

‘I can keep an inventory of your food stuffs.’ I was not going to shut up unless he ordered me to. ‘I can tally your books and accounts.’ If I was condemned to work here, I would make a place for myself. Until better times.

‘A miracle, by the Holy Virgin.’ The mockery went up by a notch. ‘What is such a gifted mistress of all crafts doing in my kitchen?’ The laughter at my expense expanded too. ‘Let’s start with this for now.’

I was put to work raking the hot ashes from the ovens and scouring the fat-encrusted baking trays. No different from the Abbey or the Perrers’s household at all.

But it was different, and I relished it. Here was life at its most coarse and vivid, not a mean existence ruled by silence and obedience. This was no living death. Not that I enjoyed the work—it was hard and relentless and punishing under the eye of Master Humphrey and Sir Joscelyn—but here was no dour disapproval or use of a switch if I sullied the Rule of Saint Benedict. Or caught Damiata’s caustic eye. Everyone had something to say about every event or rumour that touched on Master Humphrey’s kitchen. I swear he could discuss the state of the realm as well as any great lord while slitting the gizzard of a peacock. It was a different world. I was now the owner of a straw pallet in a cramped attic room with two of the maids who strained the milk and made the rounds of cheese in the dairy. I was given a blanket, a new shift and kirtle—new to me at any event—a length of cloth to wrap round my hair and a pair of rough shoes.

Better than a lay sister at St Mary’s? By the Virgin, it was!

I listened as I toiled. The scullions gossiped from morn till night, covering the whole range of the royal family. The Queen was ill, the King protective. The King was well past the days of his much-lauded victory on the battlefield of Crécy against the bloody French, but still a man to be admired. Whilst Isabella, a madam, refusing every sensible marriage put to her. The King should have taken a whip to her sides! As for the Countess of Kent—my ears instantly pricked up—who had married the Prince and would one day be Queen, well, she was little better than a whore, and an ill-mannered one at that when it suited her. Thank God she was in Aquitaine with her long-suffering husband. Unaware of my interest, the scurrilous gossip continued.

Gascony and Aquitaine, our possessions across the channel, were in revolt. Ireland was simmering like a pot of soup. Now the buildings of the man Wykeham! Water directed to the kitchens to run direct from a spigot into a bowl at Westminster! May it come to Havering soon, pray God.

Meanwhile I was sent to haul water from the well twenty times a day. Master Humphrey had no need for me to read or tally. I swept and scoured and chopped, burned my hands, singed my hair and emptied chamber pots. I lifted and carried and swept up. And I worked even harder to keep the lascivious scullions and pot boys at a distance. I learned fast. By God, I did!

Sim. The biggest lout of them all with his fair hair and leering smile.

I did not need any warning. I had seen Sim’s version of romantic seduction when he trapped one of the serving wenches against the door of the woodstore. It had not been enjoyment on her face as he had grunted and laboured, his hose around his ankles. I did not want his greasy hands with their filthy nails on me. Or any other part of his body. The stamp of a foot on an unprotected instep, a sharp elbow to a gut kept the human vermin at bay for the most part. Unfortunately it was easy for Sim and his crowd to stalk me in the pantry or the cellar. If his arm clipped my waist once, it did so a dozen times within the first week.

‘How about a kiss, Alice?’ he wheedled, his foul breath hot against my neck.

I punched his chest with my fist, and not lightly. ‘You’ll get no kiss from me!’

‘Who else will kiss you?’ The usual chorus of appreciation from the crude, grinning mouths.

‘Not you!’

‘You’re an ugly bitch, but you’re better than a beef carcass.’

‘You’re not. I’d sooner kiss a carp from the pond. Now back off——and take your gargoyles with you.’ I had discovered a talent for wordplay and a sharp tongue and used it indiscriminately, along with my elbows.

‘You’ll not get better than me.’ He ground his groin, fierce with arousal, against my hip.

My knee slamming between his legs loosened his hold well enough. ‘Keep your hands to yourself! Or I’ll take Master Humphrey’s boning knife to your balls and we’ll roast them for supper with garlic and rosemary!’

I was not unhappy. But I was sorry not to be pretty, and that my talents were not used. How much skill did it take to empty the chamber pots onto the midden? And as I toiled, dipping coarse wicks in foul-smelling tallow to make candles for use in the kitchens and storerooms, all noise and bustle swirling around me, I allowed myself to step back into the days of my early novitiate. I allowed the Countess of Kent—indeed I invited her—to step imperiously into my mind. She might be in Aquitaine, but for those moments she lived again in the sweaty kitchen of Havering-atte-Bower.

How had such a lowly creature as I come to be noticed by so high-born a woman? What a spectacle she had provided for me, little more than a child that I had been. A travelling litter had swayed to a halt, marvellous with swags and gilded leather curtains and the softest of soft cushions, pulled by a team of six gleaming horses. Minions and outriders had filled the space. And so much luggage in an accompanying wagon to be unloaded. I had never seen such wealth. As I had watched, jewelled fingers had emerged and the curtains twitched back in a grand gesture.

Blessed Virgin! The sight had stopped my breath as a lady stepped from the palanquin, shaking out her silk damask skirts—a hint of deep patterned blue, of silver thread and luxuriant fur—and smoothing the folds of her mantle, the jewels on her fingers afire with a rainbow of light. She was not a young woman, but neither was she old, and she was breathtakingly beautiful. I could see nothing of her figure, shrouded as she was in the heavy cloak despite the warmth of the summer day, or of her hair, hidden beneath a crispinette and black veil, but I could see her face. It was a perfect oval of fair skin, and she was lovely. Her eyes, framed by the fine linen and undulating silk, were large and lustrous, the colour of new beech leaves.

This was Countess Joan of Kent, the ill-mannered whore of kitchen gossip.

From one of the wagons bounded a trio of little dogs that yapped and capered around her skirts. A hawk on a travelling perch eyed me balefully. And an animal such as I had never seen, all bright eyes and poking fingers, the colour of a horse chestnut with a ruff around its face and a long tail. Complete with a gold collar and chain, it leapt and clung to one of the carved side-struts of the litter. I could not look away. I was transfixed, entirely seduced by worldly glory, whilst the creature both charmed and repelled me in equal measure.

Then, without warning, with harsh cries and snatching hands, the exotic creature leapt to dart through the nuns, drawn up in ranks to welcome this visitor. The nuns flinched as one, their cries in counterpoint. The lap dogs yapped and gave chase. And as the animal scurried past me, I knew!

Stooping smartly, I snatched at the trailing end of its chain so that it came to a screaming, chattering halt at my feet, its sharp teeth very visible. I gave them no thought. Before it could struggle for release, I had lifted it into my arms. Light, fragile boned, its fur incredibly soft, it curled its fingers into my veil and held on, and I felt my face flush as a taut silence fell and all eyes turned on me.

Back in the kitchen, as the reek of hot tallow coated my flesh, I shivered, almost able to feel the scratch of the creature’s fingers as I cut and dipped. The rescue of Joan’s monkey had been a selfishly calculated action, nothing like my impulsive gesture to grasp the hand of the Queen of England. Should I have regretted my boldness? I did not. I had seized the only chance I had ever had to make someone notice me. I did not regret it even when I discovered that the lady was perusing me as if I were a fat carp in the market. I tried a curtsey, unfortunately graceless, my arms full of shrieking fury.

‘Well!’ the lady remarked, her lips at last curved into the semblance of a smile, although her eyes were cool. ‘How enterprising of you.’ And the smile widened into one of blinding charm, sparkling like ice on a puddle on a winter’s morn. ‘I need someone to see to my needs. This girl will do.’ And raising her hand in an authoritative gesture as if the matter was decided, ‘Come with me. Keep hold of the Barbary.’

And so I followed her, my mouth dry, belly churning with a strange mix of shock and excitement. I was to become a maidservant. To fetch and carry and perform menial tasks for a woman who had chosen me. For only a short time, it was true, but I had recognised a chance to be noticed. To be different. And I had held it, by the scruff of its gold-collared neck. But not for long. As soon as I had stepped into the rooms set aside for our guest, it squirmed from my hold to scamper up the embroidered hangings of the bed, to worry at the damask with sharp teeth. I remained where I was, just within the door, ignorant of my tasks.

‘Take these!’ she ordered.

Holding out a pair of embroidered gauntlets, she dropped them to the floor, anticipating that I should retrieve them. Her veil and wimple followed in similar fashion, carelessly discarded with no thought for the expensive cloth. I leapt to obey. Thus I had my first lesson as a lady’s waiting woman. The lady let the cloak fall into my arms, and I stood holding the weight of sumptuous cloth, not knowing what else to do. She gave me no direction, and the arrogance of her demeanour forbade me to ask.

‘God’s Bones!’ she remarked with casual blasphemy that impressed me. ‘Do I have to tolerate these drab accommodations? It’s worse than a dungeon in the Tower. It’s mean enough to make me repent!’ Picking up a jewel casket, she opened it and trilled a laugh that was not entirely pleasant. ‘You do not know who I am. Why should a novice in this backwater of a nunnery know of me? But by God! You will within a twelvemonth. The whole country will know of me.’ The viciousness of the tone was incongruous with such lovely features. She tossed the box onto the bed so that the jewels spilled out in a sparkling stream and cast a cursory glance in my direction. ‘I am Joan, Countess of Kent. For now at least. Soon I will be wife to Prince Edward. The future King of England.’

I knew nothing of her, or of the Prince who would be the next King. What I did know was that I had been chosen. She had chosen me to serve her. I think pride touched my heart. Mistakenly, as it turned out.

I became a willing slave to the Fair Maid of Kent whose grace and beauty were, she informed me, a matter for renown throughout the land. When she needed me, she rang a little silver bell that had remarkable carrying quality of sound. It rang with great frequency.

‘Take this gown and brush the hem—so much dust. And treat it with care.’

I brushed. I was very careful.

‘Fetch lavender—you do have lavender in your herb garden, I presume? Find some for my furs. I’ll not wear them again for some months …’

I ravaged Sister Margery’s herb patch for lavender, risking the sharp edge of the Infirmarian’s tongue.

‘Take that infernal monkey—’ for so I learned it to be ‘—into the garth. Its chatter makes my head ache. And water. I need a basin of water. Hot water—not cold as last time. And when you’ve done that, bring me ink. And a pen.’

Countess Joan was an exacting mistress, but I never minded the summonses. A window into the exhilarating world of the royal Court had been unlatched and flung wide, through which I might peer and wonder.

‘Comb out my hair,’ she ordered me.

So I did, loosening the plaited ropes of red gold to free them of tangles with an ivory comb I wished was mine.

‘Careful, girl!’ She struck out, catching my hand with her nails, enough to draw blood. ‘My head aches enough without your clumsy efforts!’

Countess Joan’s head frequently ached. I learned to move smartly out of range, but as often as she repelled me she lured me back. And the most awe-inspiring revelation, to my naive gaze?

The Countess Joan bathed!

It was a ceremony. I held a freshly laundered chemise over my arm and a towel of coarse linen. Countess Joan stripped off all her clothes without modesty. For a moment embarrassed shock crept over my skin, as if I too were unclothed. I had had no exposure to nakedness. No nun removed her undershift. A nun slept in her chemise, washed beneath it with a cloth dipped in a bowl of water, would die in it. Nakedness was a sin in the eye of God. Countess Joan had no such inhibitions. Gloriously naked, she stepped into her tub of scented water, while I simply gaped as I waited to hand her the linen when her washing was complete.

‘Now what’s wrong, girl?’ she asked with obvious amusement at my expense. ‘Have you never seen a woman in the flesh before? I don’t suppose you have, living with these old crones.’ She laughed, an appealing sound that made me want to smile, until I read the lines of malice in her face. ‘You’ll not have seen a man either, I wager.’ She yawned prettily in the heat, stretching her arms so that her breasts rose above the level of the scented water.

‘Wash my hair for me.’

I did, of course.

Wrapped in a chamber robe with her damp hair loose over her shoulders, Countess Joan delved into one of her coffers, removed a looking glass and stepped to the light from the window to inspect her features. She smiled at what she saw. Why would she not? I simply stared at the object with its silver frame and gleaming surface, until the Countess tossed her head, sensing my gaze.

‘What are you looking at?’ I shook my head. ‘I have no more need of you for now.’ She cast the shining object onto the bed. ‘Come back after Compline.’

But my fingers itched to touch it.

‘Your looking glass, my lady …’

‘Well?’

‘May I look?’ I asked.

She took me by surprise, and I was not fast enough. Countess Joan struck out with careless, casual violence, for no reason that I could see other than savage temper. An echoing slap made contact with my cheek so that I staggered, catching my breath.

‘Don’t be impertinent, girl!’ For a moment she considered me. Then her brows rose in perfect arcs and her lips curved. ‘But use the looking glass—if you really wish to.’

I took it from where it lay—and I looked. A reflection, a face that was more honest than anything I had seen in my water bowl, looked back at me. I was transfixed. Then without a word—for I could not find any to utter—I gently placed the glass face down on the bed.

‘Do you like what you see?’ Countess Joan enquired, enjoying my humiliation.

‘No!’ I managed through dry lips. My image in the water was no less than truth, and here it was proved beyond doubt. The dark eyes, depthless and without light like night water under a moonless sky. Even darker brows, as if drawn in ink with a clumsy hand. The strong jaw, the dominant nose and wide mouth. All so forceful! It was a blessing that my hair was covered. I was a grub, a worm, a nothing compared with this red-gold, pale-skinned beauty who smiled at her empty victory over me.

‘What did you expect?’ the Countess asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I managed.

‘You expected to see something that might make a man turn his head, didn’t you? Of course you did. What woman doesn’t? Much can be forgiven a woman who is beautiful. Not so an ugly one.’

How cruel an indictment, stated without passion, without any thought for my feelings. And it was at that moment, when she tilted her chin in satisfaction, that I saw the truth in her face. She was of a mind to be deliberately cruel, and as my heart fell with the weight of the evidence against me, I knew beyond doubt why she had chosen me to wait on her. I had had no part in the choosing. It had nothing to do with the antics of her perverse monkey, or my own foolish attempt to catch her attention, or my labours to be a good maidservant. She had chosen me because I was ugly, while in stark contrast this educated, sophisticated, highly polished Court beauty would shine as a warning beacon lit for all to wonder at on a hilltop. I was the perfect foil—too unlovely, too gauche, too ignorant to pose any threat to the splendour that was Joan of Kent.

I think, weighing the good against the bad, I truly detested her.

Without warning it all came to an end, of course. ‘I am leaving,’ the Countess announced after three weeks, the most exciting, exhilarating three weeks of my life. I had already seen the preparations—the litter had returned, the escort at that very moment cluttering up the courtyard—and I was sorry. ‘God’s Wounds! I’ll be glad to rid myself of these stultifying walls. I could die here and no one would be any the wiser. You have been useful to me.’ The Countess sat in the high-backed chair in her bedchamber, her feet neatly together in gilded leather shoes on a little stool, while the business of repacking her accoutrements went on around her. ‘I suppose I should reward you, but I cannot think how.’ She pointed as she stood with a swish of her damask skirts. ‘Take that box and carry the Barbary.’

With difficulty, at the cost of a bite, I recovered the monkey, but my mind was not on the sharp nip. There was one piece of knowledge I wanted from her. If I did not ask now …

‘My lady …’

‘I haven’t time.’ She was already walking through the doorway.

‘What gives a woman …?’ I thought about the word I wanted. ‘What gives a woman power?’

She stopped. She turned slowly, laughing softly, but her face was writ with a mockery so vivid that I flushed at my temerity. ‘Power? What would a creature such as you know of true power? What would you do with it, even if it came to you?’ The disdain for my ignorance was cruel in its sleek elegance.

‘I mean—the power to determine my own path in life.’

‘So! Is that what you seek?’ She allowed me a complacent little smile. And I saw that beneath her carelessness ran a far deeper emotion. She actually despised me, as perhaps she despised all creatures of low birth. ‘You’ll not get power, my dear. That is, if you mean rank. Unless you can rise above your station and become Abbess of this place.’ Her voice purred in derision. ‘You’ll not do it—but I’ll give you an answer. If you have no breeding then you need beauty. Your looks will get you nowhere. There is only one way left to you.’ Her smile vanished and I thought she gave my question some weight of consideration. ‘Knowledge.’

‘How can knowledge be power?’

‘It can, if what you know is of importance to someone else.’

What could I learn at the Abbey? To read the order of the day. To dig roots in the garden. To make simples in the Infirmary. To polish the silver vessels in the Abbey church.

‘What would I do with such learning?’ I asked in despair. How I loathed her in that moment of self-knowledge.

‘How would I know that? But I would say this. It is important for a woman to have the duplicity to make good use of what gifts she might have, however valueless they might seem. Do you have that?’

Duplicity? Did I possess it? I had no idea. I shook my head.

‘Guile! Cunning! Scheming!’ she snapped, my ignorance an affront. ‘Do you understand?’ The Countess retraced her steps to murmur in my ear as if it were a kindness. ‘You have to have the strength to pursue your goal, without caring how many enemies you make along the road. It is not easy. I have made enemies all my life, but on the day I wed the Prince they will be as chaff before the wind. I will laugh in their faces and care not what they say of me. Would you be willing to do that? I doubt it.’ The mockery of concern came swiftly to an end. ‘Set your mind to it, girl. All you have before you is your life in this cold tomb, until the day they clothe you in your death habit and sew you into your shroud.’

‘No!’ The terrible image drove me to cry out as if I had been pricked on the arm with one of Countess Joan’s well-sharpened pens. ‘I would escape from here.’ I had never said it aloud before, never put it into words. How despairing it sounded. How hopeless, but in that moment I was overwhelmed by the enormity of all that I lacked, and all that I might become if I could only encompass it.

‘Escape? And how would you live?’ An echo of Sister Goda’s words that were like a knife against my heart. ‘Without resources you would need a husband. Unless you would be a whore. A chancy life, short and brutish. Not one I would recommend. Better to be a nun.’ Sweeping me aside, she strode from the room and out into the courtyard, where she settled herself in her litter, and as I reached to deposit the monkey on the cushions and close the curtains, my services for her complete, I heard her final condemnation. ‘You’ll never be anything of value in life. So turn your mind from it.’ Then with a glinting smile, ‘I have decided how to reward you. Take the Barbary. I suppose it will give you some distraction—I begin to find it a nuisance.’

The creature was thrust out of the litter, back into my arms.

Thus in a cloud of dust Countess Joan was gone with her dogs and hawk and all her unsettling influences. But I did not forget her. For Countess Joan had applied a flame to my imagination. When it burned so fiercely that it was almost a physical hurt, I wished with all my heart I could quench it, but the fire never left me. The venal hand of ambition had fallen on me, grasping my shoulder with lethal strength, and refused to release me.

I am worth more than this, I determined as I knelt with the sisters at Compline, young as I was. I will be of value! I will make something of my life.

And had I not done so, by one means or another? Now I smiled, even as the vile stench of tallow filled my nose and throat. Despite the Countess’s judgement of me, here I was, by some miracle, at Havering-atte-Bower. Fate had snatched me up from the Abbey. I hummed tunelessly to myself. Why should fate not see a path to get me out of this hellish pit of heat and rank odours to where I might spread my wings? Especially if I gave it a helping hand.

As I dissuaded with the side of my foot one of the kitchen kittens from clawing at my skirts, I was distracted and my humming became a sharp hiss as the tallow dripped hotly onto my hand, pulling me back into the present.

When Princess Joan returned from Aquitaine, the frivolous royal Court would circle round the vivacious new Princess rather than the fading, unprepossessing Queen. Queen Philippa’s virtues would count for nothing against the brilliance of Princess Joan. I felt sorry that the Queen would be so eclipsed by a woman who was not worthy of fastening her laces, but was that not the order of things?

‘Well,’ I announced to the kitten, which had latched its claws into my shoe, ‘virtue or ambition? Goodness or worldliness? I would enjoy being able to choose between the two.’

Scooping it up, I shut the creature outside in the scullery, ignoring its plaintive mewing, as I went to answer an enraged bellow from Master Humphrey. Virtue was a fine thing—but could be as dull as a platter of day-old bread. Now, ambition was quite another matter—as succulent as the pheasants that Master Humphrey was simmering in spiced wine for the royal table.

And what happened to the monkey? Mother Abbess ordered it to be taken to the Infirmary and locked in a cellar. I never saw it again. Considering its propensity to bite, I was not sorry. Still I smiled. If I had the monkey now, I would set it loose on Sim with much malice and enjoyment.

Then all was danger, without warning. Two weeks of the whirlwind of kitchen life at Havering had lulled me into carelessness. And on that day I had been taken up with the noxious task of scrubbing down the chopping block where the joints of meat were dismembered.

‘And when you’ve done that, fetch a basket of scallions from the storeroom—and see if you can find some sage in the garden. Can you recognise it?’ Master Humphrey, shouting after me, still leaned toward the scathing.

‘Yes, Master Humphrey.’ Any fool can recognise sage.

I wrung out the cloth, relieved to escape the heat and sickening stench of fresh blood.

‘And bring some chives while you’re at it, girl!’

I was barely out of the door when my wrist was seized in a hard grip and I was almost jolted off my feet—and into the loathsome arms of Sim.

‘Well, if it isn’t Mistress Alice with her good opinion of herself!’

I raised my hand to cuff his ear but he ducked and held on. This was just Sim trying to make trouble since I had deterred him from lifting my skirts with the point of a knife and the red punctures still stood proud on his hand.

‘Get off me, you oaf!’

Sim thrust me back against the wall and I felt the familiar routine of his knee pushing between my legs.

‘I’d have you gelded if I had my way!’ I bit his hand.

Sim was far stronger than I. He laughed and wrenched the neck of my tunic. I felt it tear, and then the shoulder of my shift, and at the same time I felt the fragile string give way. Queen Philippa’s rosary, the precious gift that I had worn around my neck out of sight, slithered under my shift to the floor. I squirmed, escaped and pounced. But not fast enough. Sim snatched it up.

‘Well, well!’ He held it up above my head.

‘Give it back!’

‘Let me fuck you and I will.’

‘Not in this lifetime.’ But my whole concentration was on my beads.

So was Sim’s. He eyed the lovely strand where it swung in the light and I saw knowledge creep into his eyes. ‘Now, this is worth a pretty penny, if I don’t mistake.’

I snatched at it but he was running, dragging me with him. At that moment, as I almost tripped and fell, I knew. He would make trouble for me.

‘What’s this?’ Master Humphrey looked up at the rumpus.

‘We’ve a thief here, Master Humphrey!’ Sim’s eyes gleamed with malice.

‘I know you are, my lad. Didn’t I see you pick up a hunk of cheese and stuff it into your big gob not an hour ago?’

‘This’s more serious than cheese, Master Humphrey.’ Sim’s grin at me was an essay in slyness.

And in an instant we were surrounded. ‘Robber! Pick-purse! Thief!’ A chorus of idle scullions and mischief-making pot boys.

‘I’m no thief!’ I kicked Sim on the shin. ‘Let go of me!’

‘Bugger it, wench!’ His hold tightened. ‘Told you she wasn’t to be trusted.’ He addressed the room at large. ‘Too high an opinion of herself by half! She’s a thief!’ And he raised one hand above his head, Philippa’s gift gripped between his filthy fingers. The rosary glittered, its value evident to all. Rage shook me. How dared he take what was mine?

‘Thief!’

‘I am not!’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘She came from a convent.’ One voice was raised on my behalf.

‘I wager she owned nothing as fine as this, even in a convent.’

‘Fetch Sir Jocelyn!’ ordered Master Humphrey. ‘I’m too busy to deal with this.’

And then it all happened very quickly. ‘This belongs to Her Majesty.’ Sir Joscelyn gave his judgement. All eyes were turned on me, wide with disgust. ‘The Queen ill, and you would steal from her!’

‘She gave it to me!’ I was already pronounced guilty but my instinct was to fight.

‘You stole it!’

‘I did not.’

I tried to keep my denial even, my response calm, but I was not calm at all. Fear paralysed my mind. Much could be forgiven but not this. For the first time I learned the depth of respect for the Queen, even in the lowly kitchens and sculleries. I looked around the faces, full of condemnation and disgust. Sim and his cohort enjoying every minute of it.

‘Where’s the Marshall?’

‘In the chapel,’ one of the scullions piped up.

With the rosary in one hand and me gripped hard in the other Sir Joscelyn dragged me along and into the royal chapel, to the chancel where two labourers were lifting a wood and metal device of cogs and wheels from a handcart. There, keeping a close eye on operations, was Lord Herbert, the Marshall, whose word was law. And beside him stood the King himself. Despair was a physical pain in my chest.

‘Your Majesty. Lord Herbert.’

‘Not now, Sir Joscelyn.’ King and Marshall were preoccupied. All eyes were on the careful lifting of the contraption. We stood in silence as it was positioned piece by piece on the floor. ‘Good. Now …’

Edward turned to our importunate little group. So I was to be accused before the King himself, judged by those piercing eyes. I shivered as the evidence was produced, examined, the ownership confirmed, and I shivered even more as I was tried, condemned and sentenced by Lord Herbert to be shut in a cellar, all without listening to a word I said. And the King? He could barely snatch his concentration from the contraption at his feet, whilst I suffered for a crime I had not committed. Within the time it took to snap his fingers he would pass me over to the Marshall. It must not be! I would get his attention and keep it. And the flare of ambition and fiery resentment that I had felt under the tyranny of Countess Joan once more flickered over my skin.

I am worth more than this. I deserve more than this.

I wanted more than the half-life in the kitchens of Havering. I would make the King notice me.

‘Sire!’ I discovered a bold confidence. ‘I am the woman the Queen sent for. And this lout …’ I pointed a finger at Sim ‘… whO’s fit only to be booted out of this palace onto the midden, calls me a thief!’

‘Does he now!’ The King’s interest caught—but only mildly so.

I renewed my attack. ‘I appeal to you, Your Majesty, for justice. No one will listen to me. Is it because I am a woman? I appeal to you, Sire.’

The royal eyes widened considerably. ‘The King will always give justice.’

‘Not in your kitchens, Sire. Justice is more like a clip round the ear or a grope in a dark corner from this turd!’ I had absorbed a wealth of vocabulary during my time in the kitchens. I had the King’s attention now right enough.

‘Then I must remedy your criticisms of my kitchens.’ The sardonic reply held out little hope. ‘Did you steal this?’

‘No!’ Fear of close dark places, of being shut in the cellar, made me undaunted. ‘It is rightfully come by. Wykeham knows I did not steal it. He’ll tell you.’

Little good it did me. ‘He might,’ the King observed. ‘Unfortunately he’s not here but gone to Windsor.’

‘Her Majesty knows I did not.’ It was my last hope—but no hope at all.

‘We’ll not trouble Her Majesty.’ The King’s face was suddenly dark, contemptuous. ‘You’ll not disturb the Queen with this. Lord Herbert.’ The dark cellar loomed.

‘No!’ I gasped.

‘What is it that you will not trouble me with, Edward?’

And with that one question, the tiniest speck of hope began to grow in me.

A gentle voice, soft on the ear. Sir Joscelyn and Lord Herbert bowed. The King strode forward, so close to me that his tunic brushed against me, to take the Queen’s hand and draw her towards one of the choir stalls. His face changed, the lines of irritation smoothing, his lips softening. There was a tenderness, as if they were alone together. The Queen smiled up into his face, enclosing his hand in both of her own. Simple gestures but so strong, so affectionate. There was no doubting it. Taken up as I was with my own miseries, I could still see it and marvel at it. The King gave her a tender kiss on her cheek.

‘Philippa, my love. Are you strong enough to be here? You should be resting.’

‘I have been resting for the past week. I wish to see the clock.’

‘You don’t look strong.’

‘Don’t fuss, Edward. I feel better.’

She did not look it. Rather she was drawn and grey.

‘Sit down, my dear.’ The King pushed her gently to the cushioned seat. ‘Does your shoulder pain you?’

‘Yes. But it is not fatal.’ The Queen sat up straight, cradling her left elbow in her right palm, and surveyed what I realised was the makings of a clock. ‘It is very fine. When will you get it working?’ Then she noticed the number of people in the chapel. ‘What’s happening here?’

The Marshall cleared his throat. ‘This girl, Majesty.’ He glowered at me.

As the Queen looked at me, I saw the memory return, and with it recognition. Awkwardly she turned her whole body in her chair until she was facing me. ‘Alice?’

‘Yes, Majesty.’ I curtseyed as best I could since my arm was still in the grip of Lord Herbert, as if I might make a bid for freedom.

‘I sent Wykeham to fetch you.’ Philippa’s forehead was furrowed with the effort of recall, as if it were a long time ago. ‘You must have arrived when I was ill.’

‘Yes, Majesty.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Working in your kitchens.’

‘Are you?’ She appeared astonished. Then gave a soft laugh. ‘Who sent you there?’

‘The Princess Isabella.’ Sir Joscelyn was quick to apportion blame elsewhere. ‘She thought that was your intent.’

‘Did she? I doubt my daughter thought at all beyond her own desires. You should have known better, Sir Joscelyn.’

An uncomfortable silence lengthened until Lord Herbert pronounced, ‘The girl is a thief, Your Majesty.’

‘Are you?’ the Queen asked.

‘No, Majesty.’

Edward held out the rosary. ‘I’m afraid she is. Is this yours, my love?’

‘Yes. Or it was. You gave it to me.’

‘I did? The girl was wearing it.’

‘I expect she would. I gave it to her.’

‘I told them that, my lady,’ I appealed, ‘but they would not believe me.’

‘To a kitchen maid? Why would you do that?’ The King spread his hands in disbelief.

The Queen sighed. ‘Let go of her, Lord Herbert. She’ll not run away. Come here, Alice. Let me look at you.’

I discovered that I had been holding my breath. When the Queen held out her hand I fell to my knees before her in gratitude, returning her regard when her tired eyes moved slowly, speculatively, over my face. As if she was trying to anchor some deep wayward thought that was not altogether pleasing to her. Then she nodded and touched my cheek.

‘Who would have thought so simple a thing as a gift of a rosary would cause so much trouble?’ she said, her smile wry. ‘And why should it take the whole of the royal household to solve the matter?’ Pushing herself to her feet, she drew me with her, taking everything in hand with a matriarchal authority. ‘Thank you, Sir Joscelyn. Lord Herbert. I know you have my interests at heart. You are very assiduous, but I will deal with this. This girl is no thief, forsooth. Now, give me your arm, Alice. Let me put some things right.’

I helped her from the chapel, conscious of her weight as we descended the stair, and of the King’s muttered comment that, thank God, I was no longer his concern. As we walked slowly towards the royal apartments, a warm expectancy began to dance through my blood. Maidservant? Tirewoman? I still could not imagine why she would want me, given the wealth of talent around her, but I knew there was something in her mind. Just as I sensed that from this point my life, with its humdrum drudgery and servitude, would never be the same again.

My immediate destiny was an empty bedchamber—unused, I assumed, from the lack of furnishings and the dust that swirled as our skirts created a little eddy of air. And in that room: a copper-bound tub, buckets of steaming water and the ministrations of two of the maids from the buttery. I was simply handed over.

With hot water and enthusiasm, buttressed by a remarkable degree of speculative interest, the maids got to work on me. I had never bathed before, totally immersed in water. I remembered Countess Joan, naked and arrogant, confident in her beauty, whereas I slid beneath the water to wallow up to my chin, like a trout in a summer pool, before my companions could actually look at me.

‘Go away,’ I remonstrated. ‘I’m perfectly capable of scrubbing my own skin.’

‘Queen’s orders!’ They simpered. ‘No one disobeys the Queen.’

There was no arguing against such a declaration so I set myself to make the best of it. The maids were audacious enough to point out my deficiencies. Too thin. No curves, small breasts, lean hips. They gave no quarter, making me horribly conscious of the inadequacies in my unclothed body, despite my sharp observation that life in a convent did not encourage solid flesh. Rough hands, they pointed out. Neglected hair. As for my eyebrows … The litany unrolled. ‘Fair is fashionable!’ they informed me.

I sighed. ‘Don’t rub so hard!’

They ignored me. I was soaped and rinsed, dried with soft linen, and in the end I simply closed my eyes and allowed them to talk and gossip and put me in the clothes provided for me. And such garments. The sensuous glide on my skin forced me to open my eyes. They were like nothing I had ever seen, except in the coffers of Countess Joan. An undershift of fine linen that did not catch when I moved. An overgown, close-fitting to my hips, in the blue of the Virgin’s cloak—a cotehardie, I was told, knowing no name for such fashionable niceties—with a sideless surcoat over all, sumptuous to my eyes with grey fur bands and an enamelled girdle. All made for someone else, of course, the fibres scuffed along hem and cuffs, but what did I care for that? They were a statement in feminine luxury I could never have dreamed of. And so shiny, so soft, fabrics that slid through my fingers. Silk and damask and fine wool. For the first time in my life I was clothed in a colour, glorious enough to assault my senses. I felt like a precious jewel, polished to a sparkle.

They exclaimed over my hair, of course.

‘Too coarse. Too dark. Too short to braid. Too short for anything.’

‘Better than when it was cropped for a novice nun,’ I fired back.

They pushed it into the gilded mesh of a crispinette, and covered the whole with a veil of some diaphanous material that floated quite beautifully and a plaited filet to hold it firm, as if to hide all evidence of my past life. But no wimple. I vowed never to wear a wimple again.

‘Put these on …’ I donned the fine stockings, the woven garters. Soft shoes were slid onto my feet.

And I took stock, hardly daring to breathe unless the whole ensemble fell off around my feet. The skirts were full and heavy against my legs, moving with a soft hush as I walked inexpertly across the room. The bodice was laced tight against my ribs, the neckline low across my unimpressive bosom. I did not feel like myself at all, but rather as if I were dressed for a mummer’s play I had once seen at Twelfth Night at the Abbey.

Did maidservants to the Queen really wear such splendour?

I was in the process of kicking the skirts behind me, experimentally, when the door opened to admit Isabella. The two maids curtseyed to the floor. I followed suit, with not a bad show of handling the damask folds, but not before I had seen the thin-lipped distaste. She walked round me, taking her time. Isabella, the agent of my kitchen humiliations.

‘Not bad,’ she commented, as I flushed. ‘Look for yourself.’ And she handed me the tiny looking glass that had been suspended from the chatelaine at her waist.

Oh, no! Remembering my last brush with vanity, I put my hands behind my back as if I were a child caught out in wrong doing. ‘No, I will not.’

Her smile was deeply sardonic. ‘Why not?’

‘I think I’ll not like what I see,’ I said, refusing to allow my gaze to fall before hers.

‘Well, that’s true enough. There’s only so much that can be done. Perhaps you’re wise,’ Isabella murmured, but the sympathy was tainted with scorn.

Peremptorily she gestured, and in a silence stretched taut I was led along the corridors to the solar where Philippa sat with her women.

‘Well, you’ve washed her and dressed her, Maman. For what it’s worth.’

‘You are uncharitable, Isabella.’ The Queen’s reply was unexpectedly sharp.

Isabella was not cowed. ‘What do we do with her now?’

‘What I intended from the beginning, despite your meddling. She will be one of my damsels.’

A royal damsel? Isabella’s brows climbed. I suspect mine did too. I was too shocked to consider how inappropriate my expression might be.

‘You don’t need her,’ Isabella cried in disbelief. ‘You have a dozen.’

‘No?’ A smile, a little sad to my mind, touched the Queen’s face. ‘Maybe I do need her.’

‘Then choose a girl of birth. Before God, there are enough of them.’

‘I know what I need, Isabella.’ As the Queen waved her daughter away she handed the rosary back to me.

‘My lady …’

What could I find to say? My fingers closed around the costly beads, whatever the Queen might say to the contrary. In the length of a heartbeat, in one firm command and one gesture of dismissal of her daughter’s hostility, the Queen had turned my life on its head.

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ So Isabella had the last word.

She did not care that I heard her.

Why me? The one thought danced in my head when the ladies were gone about their customary affairs. A damsel—a lady in waiting to the Queen.

‘Why me?’ I asked aloud. ‘What have I to offer, Majesty?’

Philippa perused me as if searching for an answer, her features uncommonly stern.

‘Your Majesty?’

‘Forgive me. I was distracted.’ She closed her eyes: when she opened them there was a lingering vestige of sorrow, but her voice was kind enough. ‘One day I’ll tell you. But for now, let’s see what we can do with you.’

So there it was. Decided on some chance whim, with some underlying purpose that the Queen kept to herself. I became a domicella. A lady in waiting. Not a domina, one of the highborn, but a domicella. I was the youngest, least skilled and least important of the Queen’s ladies. But I was a part of her household. I was an inhabitant of her solar.

I could not believe my good fortune. When sent on some trivial errand through a succession of deserted antechambers, I lifted my skirts above my ankles and, fired by sheer exuberance, danced a measure of haphazard steps to the lingering echoes of the lute from the solar. Not well, you understand, for it was something I had yet to learn, but more than I had ever achieved in my life. It fascinated me what confidence a fine robe with fur edgings could bestow on a woman. When a passing maidservant, one I had brushed shoulders with in the hot squalor of the kitchens, dropped an open-mouthed, reluctant curtsey before rushing off to spread the news of the marvellous advancement of Alice Perrers, I danced again. This was more like it. Alice Perrers: a court lady, in such finery as she could never have imagined. It was all too much to believe, my transition from greasy servant to perfumed damsel, but if one of the kitchen sluts afforded me a sign of respect, then it must be so. I was so full of joy that I could barely restrain myself from shouting my good fortune to the still, watchful faces in the tapestries.

I would, if I had my way, never set foot in a kitchen again.

What would clerk Greseley say if he could see me now? Waste of good coin! I suspected. Better to put it into bricks and mortar! What remark would Wykeham find to make, other than an explanation of his ambitions to construct a royal bath house and garderobe? I laughed aloud. And the King? King Edward would only notice me if I had cogs and wheels that moved and slid and clicked against each other.

I tried a pirouette, awkward in the shoes that were too loose round the heel. One day, I vowed, I would wear shoes that were made for me and fitted perfectly.

As for what the Queen might want of me in return, it could not be so very serious, could it?

They tripped over their trailing skirts, the Queen’s damsels, to transform me into a lady worthy of my new position. I was a pet. A creature to be cosseted and stroked, to relieve their boredom. It was not in my nature, neither was it a role I wished to play, but it was an exhilarating experience as they created the new Alice Perrers.

I absorbed it all: anointed and burnished, my hands smothered in perfumed lotions far headier than anything produced in Sister Margery’s stillroom, my too-heavy brows plucked into what might pass for an elegant arch—if the observer squinted. Clothes, and even jewels, were handed over with casual kindness. A ring, a brooch to pin my mantle, a chain of gilt and gleaming stones to loop across my breast. Nothing of great value, but enough that I might exhibit myself in public as no less worthy of respect than the ladies from high-blooded families. I spread my fingers—now smooth with pared nails, to admire the ring with its amethyst stone. It was as if I was wearing a new skin, like a snake sloughing off the old in spring. And I was woman enough to enjoy it. I wore the rosary fastened to my girdle, enhanced with silver finials even finer than those of Abbess Sybil.

‘Better!’ Isabella remarked after sour contemplation. ‘But I still don’t know why the Queen wanted you!’

It remained beyond my comprehension too.

The Queen’s damsels were feminine, pretty, beautiful. I was none of those. Their figures were flattered by the new fashion, with gowns close-fitting from breast to hip. The rich cloth hung on me like washing on a drying pole. They were gifted in music for the Queen’s pleasure. Any attempt to teach me to sing was abandoned after the first tuneless warble. Neither did my fingers ever master the lute strings, much less the elegant gittern. They could stitch a girdle with flowers and birds. I had no patience with it. They conversed charmingly in French, with endless gossip, with shared knowledge of people of the Court. I knew no one other than Wykeham, who deigned to speak with me when he returned to Court, even noting my change of fortune—’Well, here’s an improvement, Mistress Perrers! Have you learnt to ride yet?’—but his fixation with building arches was the subject of laughter. Master Wykeham clearly did not flirt.

For the damsels, flirtation was an art in itself. I never learned it. I was too forthright for that. Too critical of those I met. Too self-aware to pretend what I did not feel. And if that was a sin, I was guilty. I could not pretend an interest or an affection where I had none.

Had I nothing to offer? What I had, I used to make myself useful, or noticed, or even indispensable. I had set my feet in the Queen’s solar. I would not be cast off, as Princess Isabella cast off her old gowns. I worked hard.

I could play chess. The ordered rules of the little figures pleased me. I had no difficulty in remembering the measures of a knight against a bishop, the limitations of a queen against a castle. As for the foolish pastime of Fox and Geese, I found an unexpected fascination in manoeuvring the pieces to make the geese corner the fox before that wily creature could prey on the silly birds.

‘I’ll not play with you, Alice Perrers!’ Isabella declared, abandoning the game. ‘Your geese are too crafty by half.’

‘Craftier than your fox, my lady.’ Isabella’s fox was tightly penned into a corner by my little flock of birds. ‘Your fox is done for, my lady.’

‘So it is!’ Isabella laughed, more out of surprise than amusement, but she resisted a cutting rejoinder.

To please the damsels I made silly, harmless love charms and potions, gleaned from my memory of Sister Margery’s manuscripts in the Abbey’s Infirmary. A pinch of catnip, a handful of yarrow, a stem of vervain, all wrapped in a scrap of green silk and tied with a red cord. If they believed they were effective, I would not deny it, although Isabella swore I was more like to add the deadly hemlock in any sachet I made for her. I read to them endlessly when they wanted tales of courtly love, between a handsome knight and the object of his desire, to sigh over.

Not bad at all for a nameless, ill-bred girl from a convent. I would never be nameless and overlooked again. Pride might be a sin, but it filled my breast with gratification. Why should I not be proud of my advancement? I would be somebody worthy of a position at the royal court. I was Alice, Queen’s damsel.

And Isabella was wrong. I would never use hemlock. I knew enough from Sister Margery’s caustic warnings to be wary of such satanic works.

But what service could I offer Queen Philippa when the whole household was centred on fulfilling her wishes even before she expressed them? That was easy enough. I made draughts of white willow bark.

‘You are a blessing to me, Alice.’ The pain had been intense that day, but now, propped against her pillows, the willow tincture making her drowsy, she sighed heavily with relief. ‘I am a burden to you.’

‘It is not a burden to me to give you ease, my lady.’

I saw the lines beside her eyes begin to smooth out. She would sleep soon. The days of pain were increasing in number and her strength to withstand it was ebbing, but tonight she would have some measure of peace.

‘You are a good girl.’

‘I wasn’t a good novice!’ I responded smartly.

‘Sit here. Tell me about those days when you were a bad novice.’ Her eyelids drooped but she fought the strength of the drug.

So I did, because it pleased me to distract her. I told her of Mother Abbess and her penchant for red stockings. I told her of Sister Goda and her heavy hand, of the chickens that fell foul of the fox because of my carelessness and how I was punished. I knew enough by now not to speak of Countess Joan. Joan, the duplicitous daughter-in-law, far away in Aquitaine with her husband the Prince—she had entrapped him after all—was not a subject to give the Queen a restful night.

‘It was good that I found you,’ she murmured.

‘Yes, my lady.’ I smoothed a piercingly sweet unguent into the tight skin of her wrist and hand. ‘You have changed my life.’

A little silence fell but the Queen was not asleep. She was contemplating something beyond my sight that did not seem entirely to please her, gouging a deep cleft between her brows. Then she blinked and fixed me with an uncomfortable gaze. ‘Yes, Alice. I am sure it was good that you fell into my path.’

I was certain it was not merely to smear her suffering flesh with ointments. A shiver of awareness assailed me in the overheated room, for her declamation suggested some deep uncertainty. Had I done something to lose her regard so soon? I cast my mind over what I might have said or done to cast her into doubt. Nothing came to mind. So I asked.

‘Why did you choose me, my lady?’

When the Queen looked at me, her eyes were hooded. She closed her free hand tightly around the jewelled cross on her breast, and her reply held none of her essential compassion. Indeed, her voice was curt and bleak, and she drew her hand from my ministrations as if she could not bear my touch.

‘I chose you because I have a role for you, Alice. A difficult one perhaps. And not too far distant. But not yet. Not quite yet …’ She closed her eyes at last, as if she would shut me from her sight. ‘I’m weary now. Send for my priest, if you will. I’ll pray with him before I sleep.’

I left her, more perplexed than ever. Her words resurfaced as I lit my own candle and took myself to bed in the room I shared with two of the damsels. Sleep would not come.

I have a role for you. A difficult one perhaps. And not too far distant …

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